"The Hermit-Crab, who had been detailed to make observations on the modus in which such societies were carried on among human beings, made the following report:
"Miss President and Fellow-Fishes:
"Your committee have made a careful investigation of the subject assigned them, and agree that while man's faculties have not been cultivated to so high an extent as those pertaining to fishes, he is still a moral and intellectual animal. We believe that if he were put in possession of the advantages accorded to our race, and were submerged in salt-water for several centuries, his brain would undoubtedly become so pickled as to reduce it in size and intensify its quality. Favorable conditions of brain-pickling are all that is necessary, in our opinion, to develop some of the most advanced specimens of this genus into a low form of mollusk.
"The opinions of the Hermit-Crab were considered a marvel of liberality and generous thinking. He proceeded to explain the society-forming instinct of the human race as a professor of our own species might lecture on the concretions of deep-sea corals, and continued swimmingly, as fishes usually do, until a white-whiskered Sea-Lion begged leave to make a motion, in the language of a motto of conduct which he had often heard shouted to seamen by their commanders: 'When you are in the navy, do as the knaves do.' 'Let us,' he added, 'act upon this principle of conformity, by doing amongst men as the many do, and immediately organize a fair to meet the salaries of our officers and pay the debt on the society building.'
"'But none of us need salaries,' objected the Lobster, 'and we have no debt.'
"'As to declining a salary because I do not need it,' replied the Sea-Lion, 'I can only say that I find no such example set by the race whose customs we are following; and without a debt, or at least a deficit in the accounts of our treasurer, the respectability of our society may well be questioned.'
"A committee of Codfish aristocrats was at once authorized to secure a debt of magnificent proportions, at whatever cost, and the salary of each member of the society was set according to his own estimates. Frequent meetings of the managers were appointed for the purpose of drawing the salaries, and as the care of the Sea-Urchins could with the utmost ingenuity be made to take up but a small portion of the time, each of the managers seized upon these meetings as opportunities to air their own particular opinions. The Lobster, who was something of an autocrat, and had determined from the outset to run the concern, took the entire business management into his own claws, greatly incensing the ladies on the debt committee by intimating that they knew nothing of business, and that his office-boy, the Craw-Fish, could have devised a debt of far nobler proportions. The King-iyo, or three-tailed fish of Japan, trusted that the philosophy of the Orient was to have its full recognition in the principles of the society, and that the Sea-Urchins would be instructed in Buddhism. The Octopus, who had been one of the most desperate characters in the bay, carried his change of heart so far as to assert that no one could be considered as religious, or even respectable, who had not been extremely wicked, and urged that only the most depraved and hopeless young Sea-Urchins be admitted into the Home. While the Octopus raved over essential wickedness, and the King-iyo of philosophy, the Jelly-Fish dabbled in humanitarianism, and asserted that brains were not to be tolerated, thought was to be considered a crime, and a heart the only organ necessary for the spiritual body. All books on theology and philosophy should be sold for old paper, and the proceeds invested in charlotte russe for tramps and criminals. Every measure in the least savoring of logic or common sense must be vetoed.
"The Stickleback, who luxuriated in controversy, and in making himself generally disagreeable, summed up the remarks of those preceding him as the merest vaporing of idiocy, and denounced every system of belief held by his fellow-managers, before hearing it, with the same impartiality. Antagonism, he asserted, was the only rational attitude for any fish under all circumstances. The Conger-Eel, managing to gain possession of the floor, endeavored to pour oil on the troubled waters. He was sure that if the heterogeneous, and even antipathetic, ideas held by the different managers were only presented in writing, they would, properly mingled, blend as sweetly as lemon juice and loaf sugar in a cooling summer libation. The Cuttle-Fish, was unanimously elected chairman of a committee for eliciting and reconciling the opinions of the managers in a printed constitution. He opened the ball with a statement of his own views, which he passed to each member in turn, asking them to add their several criticisms and corrections. When the paper had gone the rounds it was read in open session by the Hermit-Crab, who summed up everything that had gone before, in a paper entitled 'A Historical Review of the Documents, beginning with the King-iyo's criticism of Mr. Snapping-Turtle's attack on Mr. Shrimp's vindication of Mr. Jelly-Fish's Apology of Mr. Conger-Eel's Deprecatory Answer to Mr. Lobster's satire on Mr. Stickleback's Challenge to Mr. Octopus's Dogmatic Denunciation of Mr. Shark's strictures on Miss Sea-Anemone's conciliatory explanation of Mr. Cuttle-Fish's exposition of the views of the society.'
"Of course this paper satisfied no one, and the meeting plunged at once into a whirlpool of ruinous discussion.
"The Stickleback bristled his spines and glared angrily about him, shrieking, 'Antagonism! Nihilism!'