Curiosity got the better of the queenly lady, and off she started with
only her two maids who held aloft over her head, the long pearl-handled
fans made of white shark's fins.

"Besides," thought she, "perhaps the concert is outside, in the garden.
If so, I can look down and see from the great green rock that overlooks
it, and my lord Kai Riu O need not know of it."

The Queen walked over her pebbled garden walk, avoiding the great high
road paved with white coral rock, and taking a by-path trimmed with
fan-coral. The sound of the drums and voices grew louder, until as she
reached the top of a green rock back of Lord Cuttle-fish's garden, the
whole performance was open to her view.

It was so funny, and the queen was so overcome at the comical sight, that
she nearly fell down and got the hysterics, laughing so heartily. She
utterly forgot her dignity, and laughed till the tears ran down her face.
She was so afraid she would scream out, that she nearly choked herself to
death with her sleeve, while her alarmed maids, though meaning nothing by
their acts but friendly help, slapped her back to give her breath.

There, at the top of a high green rock, all covered with barnacles, on a
huge tuft of sponge, sat Lord Cuttle-fish, playing on three musical
instruments at once. His great warty speckled head, six feet high, like a
huge bag upside down, was bent forward to read the notes of his music
book by the light of a wax candle, which was stuck in the feelers of a
prickly lobster, and patiently held. Of his six pulpy arms one long one
ran down like the trunk of an elephant, fingering along the pages of a
music book. Two others were used to play the guitar, one to grasp the
handle and pinch the strings, and the other to hold the ivory stick to
strike the strings. The tsutsumi (small double drum) was held on his
shoulder and neck, while still another arm curled up in a bunch, punched
it like a fist. Below him was a another, a bass drum, set in a frame, and
in his last leg, or arm, was clutched a heavy drum-stick, which pounded
out tremendous noise, if not music. There the old fellow sat with his
head bobbing, and all his six cuppy arms in motion, his rolling blue eyes
ogling the notes, and his mouth like an elephant's, screeching out the
song, which was made up of puns on 'tortoises,' 'monkeys,'
'jelly-fishes,' 'livers' and 'shell,' though the real words made an
entirely different sense.

All this time, in front of Lord Cu