He soon fell asleep again; but in the morning he was full of schemes how he might sail out into the deep sea.
He knew it was of no use speaking of it to the quiet flowers; so he went down as quickly as he could to the beach to consult his friends there.
They could none of them help him. The crabs took no interest at all in the subject, and the limpets and mussels evidently thought it a very wild idea. The whelks entered a little more into it; and he could not help hoping he might fall in with another medusa. But at length, after many fruitless inquiries, the Child seated himself, rather despondingly, on his old station by the rock-pool.
There his eyes lighted on a stone covered with a number of delicate little cups, like alabaster vases, each fastened to the rock by its stem. He was beginning to move one when a small whelk shell near made a slight rattling on the rocks, and two little horns, with two black eyes at their roots, peeped out to see what was the matter.
"Take care," said the whelk, "you are disturbing my nursery."
Then the Child saw that each of the white vases was a little egg-cup carefully fastened to the rock, and he begged the whelk's pardon.
"Do you go out to sea?" he asked.
"Some of my relations do," replied the whelk; "and I myself have occasionally floated among the great waves; but it is rather dangerous."
"I would not mind the danger," said the Child, "if you would teach me how."
The whelk had no idea how to teach any one, so the subject dropped.