You may laugh, children, but it is true. The dolphin had a servant, who was also a dolphin, but of the family of the Globiceps. These are so called because of their round heads, which look like the globes used in the electric lighting of streets.
The young dolphin was playing in the water. He tried to attract Pinocchio’s attention in many ways. He spouted water through the hole which every dolphin has at the top of his head. He called to the marionette. He smiled at the youngster. It was of no use. Pinocchio, with his wooden nose in the air and his dough cap on one ear, would not even turn his head.
“I wonder if he is deaf or blind?” the dolphin finally said, loudly enough to be heard.
Pinocchio turned with a start.
“For your own benefit, I just wish to say that I am not now and never have been deaf,” he said as haughtily as he could.
“Then why do you look at me in that fashion? And why don’t you answer me?” was the reply.
“I am acting just as a gentleman should toward those who are beneath him,” said Pinocchio.
“I don’t know which of us is the better of the two. All I do know is, that my father was the richest inhabitant of the sea and that the other dolphins considered him their king.”
“King?” mumbled Pinocchio, who knew himself to be the son of a poor carpenter, earning so little that he never had a penny in his pocket.