"It is fery goot sea anemone; fery strong, fery perfect; a goot organism."
He bent over the jar, rubbing his hands. His parchment face crackled with an almost tender complacency. For a full minute he seemed to gloat over the flower-like animal.
"Very pretty," I said, carelessly.
"Fery pretty, you call it? T'e prettiness is t'e sign of t'e gootness, t'e strengt', t'e perfection. You know t'at?"
To his challenging question, in which I saw the manner of a teacher with his pupils, I replied:
"In your estimation goodness and beauty go together?"
"T'ey are t'e same; how not? See t'is way."
He shook his lean, reproving forefinger at a shapeless, melting mass that lay at the bottom of a second jar, exuding an ooze of viscid strings.
"T'at,"—he spat the word out—"is also sea anemone. It is diseased; it is an ugly animal."
"The poor thing's dying," said Helen, coming to his side. "There ought to have been some of the green seaweed, Ulva, in the water. Wouldn't that have saved it?"