"Of tourse, of tourse," said Toddie, "dust like Tippetty does. Do [go] on, Daddy Pop."
"Says the bull to his wife—
"'What would you think of a little run to the south, my dear? You've been looking rather pale about the nose of late, and it would do you good, and little Johnnie too.'
"'Little Johnnie was the calf, you know.'
"'But I don't really care to leave you,' says the cow.
"'O, nonsense, dear, go by all means. Mind you, Johnnie isn't a strong child, I don't believe he weighs more than ten tons now, and he hasn't cut his whale-bone teeth quite yet.'
"'Well, my dear,' says the cow, 'I'll just go to please you.'
"So straight away down south comes the cow and her calf. It was a long, long journey for them. Sometimes Johnnie, her big baby, would fall sound asleep, and then his mother would spread one great loving flipper over him, and paddle along with the other so quietlike as if afraid of waking her darling.
"Then by-and-bye Johnnie would awake, and, like any other calf, begin sucking at once, and nudging his mother all the time with his bottle of a nose, raising her a little above the clear blue waves at every nudge. Yes, boys, I've often seen what I'm trying to describe to you.
"South and south went the mother and her calf, and aye and aye the weather and the water grew warmer. What gladsome times the two had together in these sunlit seas! but Johnnie always kept close beside his mother when sharks appeared, because the sharks would have killed and eaten Johnnie. But one stroke of the whale cow's tail would kill five of the biggest sharks that ever swam, and the sharks knew that and kept well away.