"Tell us; oh, tell us," cried Frank, "another story!"
"No, no, master Frank; I'll only just talk a bit."
"You've been to Greenland, sir?"
"Oh, yes, Frank! I've been blown about all over the world, and got stranded on the beach here at last, just like the whale in which we're now sitting so cosily."
"Yes," Eean continued, "with all due respect for Toddie's wisdom, I must differ from her; the probability is, that this whale had a mother.
"You know, children, that whales are not fish, but great beasts. They couldn't live long beneath the water without being drowned; half an hour at most. When they are chased by boats and harpooned they go through the water at a terrible speed, so quickly indeed that the sea rises up from each of the boats' bows like two sheets of green glass. But the whale soon gets so breathless that he can't go under water at all.
"The male or he-whale is called a bull, the she one a cow, and the young one a calf, and it takes milk from its mother just as any other calf does from its mother.
"Now the bulls are very kind to the cows. They are good-natured, kind husbands. So we may suppose that after this whale that we are now sitting in was born, and was strong enough to swim funnily round and round his big mammy, and knew enough to creep under her flipper if he saw a ship coming, the bull said to the cow——"
"O Daddie," cried Toddie, "whales tan't talk."
"Yes, Toddie, they talk with their eyes, and their tails."