mouth, after smelling at them, like a monkey. And always the
little barnacles threw out their casting-nets and swept the water,
and came in for their share of whatever there was for dinner.

But Tom was most astonished to see how he fired himself off--snap!
like the leap-frogs which you make out of a goose's breast-bone.
Certainly he took the most wonderful shots, and backwards, too.
For, if he wanted to go into a narrow crack ten yards off, what do
you think he did? If he had gone in head foremost, of course he
could not have turned round. So he used to turn his tail to it,
and lay his long horns, which carry his sixth sense in their tips
(and nobody knows what that sixth sense is), straight down his back
to guide him, and twist his eyes back till they almost came out of
their sockets, and then made ready, present, fire, snap!--and away
he went, pop into the hole; and peeped out and twiddled his
whiskers, as much as to say, "You couldn't do that."

Tom asked him about water-babies. "Yes," he said. He had seen
them often. But he did not think much of them. They were
meddlesome little creatures, that went about helping fish and
shells which got into scrapes. Well, for his part, he should be
ashamed to be helped by little soft creatures that had not even a
shell on their backs. He had lived quite long enough in the world
to take care of himself.

He was a conceited fellow, the old lobster, and not very civil to
Tom; and you will hear how he had to alter his mind before he was
done, as conceited people generally have. But he was so funny, and
Tom so lonely, that he could not quarrel with him; and they used to
sit in holes in the rocks, and chat for hours.