grotesque denizen of the deep,
would have felt the charm of Emilius:

"Dark the sea was, but I saw him,
One great head with goggle eyes,
Like a diabolic cherub
Flying in those fallen skies.

* * * * *

"For I saw that finny goblin
Hidden in the abyss untrod;
And I knew there can be laughter
On the secret face of God."

But it was almost too early for Chesterton, and quite too early for the
fascinating fish poems of Rupert Brooke or for Chauncey Hickox's
feeling apostrophe to a tortoise:

"Paludal, glum, with misdirected legs,
You hide your history as you do your eggs,
And offer us an osseous nut to crack
Much harder than the shell upon your back.
No evolutionist has ever guessed
Why your cold shoulder is within your chest--
Why you were discontented with a plan
The vertebrates accept, from fish to man.
For what environment did you provide
By pushing your internal frame outside?
How came your ribs in this abnormal place?
Inside your rubber neck you hide your face
And answer not."

Besides, I had no ground for hope that Emilius would be pleased by my
reading of poetry or by anything else that I could do for him. He
impressed me as intensely preoccupied, a turtle of a fixed idea.

I was standing by the tub at sunset, trying to ingratiate myself with
its sulky occupant, whom I had just dragged up from his latest hole in
the bank, by tickling his flippers with a playful twig, when Giant
Bluff strode over from his adjacent territory and made us a party of
three.

"How's your snapper?"

"I don't know. He doesn't tell. But I'm afraid he can't be feeling very
fit, for he hasn't eaten anything since he came, a week ago."

"Hasn't, though? Huh! Looked out of my window at three o'clock last
night and saw it grazing out there at the length of its rope, munching
grass like any old cow."

Previous conversations with Giant Bluff had impaired our faith in his
strict veracity.

"I thought turtles ate only animal food."

"If it's fresh and kicking. What you ought to do is to catch it a mess
of frogs. 'Twould tear a live frog to pieces fast enough. But you've
starved it to grass. That's all right. I raised turtles out on the
Mojave desert one spell and fed 'em on nothing but grass. Quite a
dainty out there. Sold 'em for five dollars apiece. Turned over a cool
thousand----"

"Of turtles?"

"Of dollars.