new way of spelling seems to get everything mixed up. Nebuchadnezzar
doesn't mean anything at all, it seems to me."

"It means he ate grass," said the child.

"Oh no, he didn't," declared the Sea Serpent. "He was the first to
discover that lettuce was good to eat, and he became very fond of
it. The people may have called it grass, but they were wrong. I
ought to know, because I was alive when Nevercouldnever lived. Were
you alive, then?"

"No," said Trot.

"The pain I had then," remarked Anko, "was caused by a kink in my
tail about three hundred feet from the end. There was an old octopus
who did not like me, and so he tied a knot in my tail when I wasn't
looking."

"What did you do?" asked Cap'n Bill.

"Well, first I transformed the octopus into a jellyfish, and then I
waited for the tide to turn. When my tail was untied, the pain
stopped."

"I--I don't understand that," said Trot, somewhat bewildered.

"Thank you, my dear," replied the Sea Serpent in a grateful voice.
"People who are always understood are very common. You are sure to
respect those you can't understand, for you feel that perhaps they
know more than you do."