The Doctor was standing at the main table in his dressing-gown.
At first I thought he was washing his face. He had a square
glass box before him full of water. He was holding one ear under
the water while he covered the other with his left hand. As I
came in he stood up.

"Good morning, Stubbins," said he. "Going to be a nice day,
don't you think? I've just been listening to the Wiff-Waff. But
he is very disappointing--very."

"Why?" I said. "Didn't you find that he has any language at
all?"

"Oh yes," said the Doctor, "he has a language. But it is such a
poor language--only a few words, like 'yes' and 'no'--'hot' and
'cold.' That's all he can say. It's very disappointing. You see
he really belongs to two different families of fishes. I thought
he was going to be tremendously helpful--Well, well!"

"I suppose," said I, "that means he hasn't very much sense if his
language is only two or three words?"

"Yes, I suppose it does. Possibly it is the kind of life he
leads. You see, they are very rare now, these Wiff-Waffs--very
rare and very solitary. They swim around in the deepest parts of
the ocean entirely by themselves--always alone. So I presume
they really don't need to talk much."

"Perhaps some kind of a bigger shellfish would talk more," I