"I want to know!" interposed Mrs. Isaac Cutter, leaning forward eagerly, spectacles on nose. "Can folks really shave with those, sir? They do look sharp, now, don't they? What might you ask for a pair?"
"Perhaps not very easy to grind, lady!" replied the Skipper, with a smile which won Mrs. Isaac's heart. "Not a rare shell, only fifty cents the pair. Thank you, madam! To show you this? With gladness! This is the Bleeding Tooth shell, found in plenty in West Indies. They have also dentists under the sea, graciously observe. See here,—the whole family! The baby, he have as yet no tooth, the little gum smooth and white. Here, the boy! (Como ti, Juan Colorado!" this in a swift aside, caught only by John's ear.) "The boy, he have a tooth pulled, you observe, madam; here the empty space, with blood-mark, thus. Hence the name, Bleeding Tooth. Here the father, getting old, has lost two teeth, bleeding much; and this being the old grandfather, all teeth are gone, again. Yes, curious family! You kindly accept these persons, madam, with a wish that you never suffer of this manner."
Mrs. Isaac Cutter drew a long breath, and took the shells with a look of delighted awe. "Well, I'm sure!" she said, "you're more than kind, sir. I never thought—I do declare—Bleeding Tooth! Well, father, if that isn't something to tell the folks at home!" Mr. Isaac Cutter grunted, well pleased, and said, "That so!" several times, his vocabulary being limited.
"Again, here," the Skipper continued, with a glance around, to make sure that his audience was attentive, "again, here a curious thing, ladies and gentlemen. The Nighthawk shell, not common in any part of the world. The two halves held together of this manner, behold the nighthawk, as he flies through the air!"
A murmur of delight ran through the little group, and Mr. Endymion Scraper edged to the front, his fingers twitching convulsively.
"How much—how much do you want for that Nighthawk?" he asked, stammering with eagerness. "'Taint wuth much, but—what—ten dollars? I'll give ye three, and not a cent more."
But the Skipper put him aside with a wave of his hand.
"Another time, sir," he said; "at future interview I will make arrangements with you, and hope to satisfy; at present I instruct these ladies a little in life under the sea.
"Lady," he said, and it was observable that although he spoke to Mrs. Isaac Cutter, his eyes rested on Lena, and on the boy John, who stood behind her, "Nature of her abundance is very generous to the sea. Here all fishes swim, great and small; but more! All things that on earth find their place, of them you find a picture, copy, what you please to call it, at the bottom of the sea. A few only are yet found by men, yet strange things also have I seen. Not under the ocean do you think to find violets growing, is it so? yet here you observe a handful of violets, in colour as on a green bank, though without perfume, the sunshine wanting in those places."
He drew from a box some of the exquisite little violet snail-shells, and gave them to Lena, who cried out with delight, and instantly resolved to have a pair of ear-rings made of them.