.

I have told of my great love of music, and have also said that the
Dolphin family is a very sociable one. Yes, and I could grow fond of
Folks, I know, if only they could live in the sea, or I could live on
the land. But as neither of these things can be, I must be content with
liking them at a distance.

One afternoon I was full of sport, and felt lively as a cricket. Oh,
yes, I know the small, frisky fellow you call a cricket, with his little
old black legs, and have heard him sing. So on this calm and lovely
afternoon I began leaping upward instead of forward, and all at once I
heard sounds of music floating across the upper sea. You can believe I
floundered alongside, and oh, such sweetness as trilled out into the
clear air!

The truth was, a great steamer was crossing the Mediterranean with a
pleasure party on board. What I heard was the music of a brass band. My!
My! Isn't it enough to delight the heart of any creature that has ears
to hear? It actually would make a fish dance.

Now I didn't know it, but I made such plunges upward that my great dark
body could be seen in the clear water, and some sailors began "laying"
for me, half suspecting what might happen.

Well-a-well, I got so full of music, joy, and friskiness, that all at
once I gave a tremendous jump, and flounced right on to the deck of the
fine steamer. Had I not been so utterly surprised, I should immediately
have flounced back again to my ocean bed "quick shot," as I afterward
heard a sailor say. But dear, deary me! I hesitated just a moment too
long, and when I made a flop intending to bounce away, lo! a stout rope
was about my body, and another about my tail, and I was a prisoner!

Then the Folks all gathered about me, and the sailors went laughing off,
saying something about "making the fellow's bed."

Oh, it was all very strange and unnatural. And in a few moments I began
panting for breath. Just as you would gasp, if by accident you popped
over from a boat into the water. Only you would gasp for want of air,
and I was gasping from too much of it.

But it was not long before I was taken to a side of the vessel, and
after straining and tugging with my great weight, I was indeed bounced
into water, but when I tried to swim, oh, misery! what kind of a place
was I in?

Only a tank, some twenty feet long by fifteen feet wide, filled with sea
water!

Truth was, there was a man-Folk on board who had caught, and wanted to
carry to a great