ff
out of sight. Since that time jelly-fishes have had no shells.

LORD CUTTLE-FISH GIVES A CONCERT.

Despite the loss of the monkey's liver, the queen of the World under the
Sea, after careful attention and long rest, got well again, and was able
to be about her duties and govern her kingdom well. The news of her
recovery created the wildest joy all over the Under-world, and from tears
and gloom and silence, the caves echoed with laughter, and the
sponge-beds with music. Every one had on a "white face." Drums, flutes
and banjos, which had been hung up on coral branches, or packed away in
shell boxes, were taken down, or brought out, and right merrily were
they struck or thrummed with the ivory _hashi_ (plectrum). The pretty
maids of the Queen put on their ivory thimble-nails, and the Queen again
listened to the sweet melodies on the _koto_, (flat harp), while down
among the smaller fry of fishy retainers and the scullions of the
kitchen, were heard the constant thump of the _tsutsumi_ (shoulder-drum),
the bang of the taiko (big drum), and the loud cries of the dancers as
they struck all sorts of attitudes with hands, feet and head.

No allusion was openly made either to monkeys, tortoises or jelly-fish.
This would not have been polite. But the jelly-fish, in a distant pool in
the garden, could hear the refrain, "The rivers of China run into the
sea, and in it sinks the rain."

Now in the language of the Under-world people the words for "river," and
"skin," (or "covering,") and "China," and "shell," and "rain," and
"jelly," are the same. So the chorus, which was nothing but a string of
puns, meant, "The skin of the jelly-fish runs to the sea, and in it sinks
the jelly."

But none of these musical performances were worthy of the Queen's notice;
although as evidences of the joy of her subjects, they did very well. A
great many entertainments were gotten up to amuse the finny people, but
the Queen was present at none of them except the one about to be
described. How and why she became a spectator shall also be told.

One night the queen was sitting in the pink drawing-room, arrayed in her
queenly robes, for she was quite recovered and expected to walk out in
the evening. Everything in the room, except a vase of green and golden
colored sponge-plant, and a plume of glass-thread, was of a pink color.
Then there was a pretty rockery made of a pyramid of pumice, full of
embossed rosettes of living sea-anemones of