What was my surprise, then, to discover my little friend one day in a
gloomy and morose mood. It refused the peanut-butter which I had brought
it and I observed through the microscope that it was shaking with sobs.
Lifting it up with a pair of pincers I took it over to the window to let
it watch the automobiles go by, a diversion which had, in the past,
never failed to amuse. But I could see that it was not interested. A
tune from the victrola fell equally flat, even though I set my little
charge on the center of the disc and allowed it to revolve at a dizzy
pace, which frolic usually sent it into spasms of excited giggling.
Something was wrong. It was under emotional stress of the most racking
kind.

I consulted Klunzinger's "Die Korallenthiere des Rothen Meeres" and
there found that at an early age the polyp is quite likely to become the
victim of a sentimental passion which is directed at its own self.

In other words, my tiny companion was in love with itself, bitterly,
desperately, head-over-heels in love.

In an attempt to divert it from this madness, I took it on an extended
tour of the Continent, visiting all the old cathedrals and stopping at
none but the best hotels. The malady grew worse, instead of better. I
thought that perhaps the warm sun of Granada would bring the color back
into those pale tentacles, but there the inevitable romance in the soft
air was only fuel to the flame, and, in the shadow of the Alhambra, my
little polyp gave up the fight and died of a broken heart without ever
having declared its love to itself.

I returned to America shortly after not a little chastened by what I had