Mr. Lobster saw the fisherman, he gave such a furious and
tremendous snap, that he snapped out of his hand, and out of the
pot, and safe into the sea. But he left his knobbed claw behind
him; for it never came into his stupid head to let go after all, so
he just shook his claw off as the easier method. It was something
of a bull, that; but you must know the lobster was an Irish
lobster, and was hatched off Island Magee at the mouth of Belfast
Lough.

Tom asked the lobster why he never thought of letting go. He said
very determinedly that it was a point of honour among lobsters.
And so it is, as the Mayor of Plymouth found out once to his cost--
eight or nine hundred years ago, of course; for if it had happened
lately it would be personal to mention it.

For one day he was so tired with sitting on a hard chair, in a
grand furred gown, with a gold chain round his neck, hearing one
policeman after another come in and sing, "What shall we do with
the drunken sailor, so early in the morning?" and answering them
each exactly alike:

"Put him in the round house till he gets sober, so early in the
morning" -

That, when it was over, he jumped up, and played leap-frog with the
town-clerk till he burst his buttons, and then had his luncheon,
and burst some more buttons, and then said: "It is a low spring-
tide; I shall go out this afternoon and cut my capers."

Now he did not mean to cut such capers as you eat with boiled