“Yes,” sighed the dolphin, “I would like some more salt in my element soup.”
Mary Frances gravely shook the salt-shaker over the bowl for a full minute. The dolphin tasted the water. “A little more, please,” he said.
So Mary Frances emptied almost all the rest of the salt out of the shaker into the bowl. The dolphin dipped in his head. “That’s excellent,” he said, smacking his lips.
“Mercy,” thought Mary Frances, “I do hope he won’t turn into a salt mackerel.”
“Salt Smackerel is my pet name,” said the dolphin, smacking his lips again, and wiping them with his fin.
“I hardly dare think,” thought Mary Frances, “yet I can’t help thinking, can I? What queer table manners he has! I suppose his mother never taught him not to smack his lips when he eats—just to chew with the lips closed.”
“I chew all I choose!” exclaimed the dolphin. “My mother never sat at a table, you see.”
“Oh!” said Mary Frances, “did she stand?”
“Three feet high in her stocking feet,” solemnly declared the dolphin, which Mary Frances didn’t consider an answer at all; but was too polite to say anything that might be annoying to a guest.
“I wonder what I can give him for dessert?” she thought.