“No, it warn’t me,” responded Maxwell; “it was long Tom Skinclip. He was too tall for a diver—he was. They say he stood six futt four in his socks; moreover he was as thin as a shadow from a bad gas-lamp. He was workin’ one day down in the ’arbour, layin’ stones at the foundations of the noo breakwater, when they set off a blast about a hundred yards off from where he was workin’, an’ so powerful was the blast that it knocked him clean on his back. He got such a fright that he signalled violently to haul up, an’ they did haul ’im up, expectin’ to find one of his glasses broke, or his toobes bu’sted. There was nothin’ wotsomedever the matter with ’im, but he wouldn’t go down again that day. ’Owsever, he got over it, an’ after that went down to work at a wreck somewhere in the eastern seas—not far from Ceylon, I’m told. When there ’e got another fright that well-nigh finished him, an’ from that day he gave up divin’ an’ tuck to gardening, for which he was much better suited.”
“What happened to him?” asked Edgar.
“I’m not rightly sure,” answered Maxwell, refilling his pipe, “but I’ve bin told he had to go down one day in shallow water among sea-weed. It was a beautiful sort o’ submarine garden, so to speak, an’ long Tom Skinclip was so fond o’ flowers an’ gardens nat’rally, that he forgot hisself, an’ went wanderin’ about what he called the ‘submarine groves’ till they thought he must have gone mad. They could see him quite plain, you see, from the boat, an’ they watched him while he wandered about. The sea-weed was up’ard of six feet high, tufted on the top with a sort o’ thing you might a’most fancy was flowers. The colours, too, was bright. Among the branches o’ this submarine forest, or grove, small lobsters, an’ shrimps, an’ other sorts o’ shell-fish, were doin’ dooty as birds—hoppin’ from one branch to another, an’ creepin’ about in all directions.
“After a time long Tom Skinclip he sat down on a rock an’ wiped the perspiration off his brow—at least he tried to do it, which set the men in the boat all off in roars of laughter, for, d’ee see, Skinclip was an absent sort of a feller, an’ used to do strange things. No doubt when he sat down on the rock he felt warm, an’ bein’ a narvish sort o’ chap, I make no question but he was a-sweatin’ pretty hard, so, without thinkin’, he up with his arm, quite nat’ral like, an’ drawed it across where his brow would have bin if the helmet hadn’t been on. It didn’t seem to strike him as absurd, however, for he putt both hands on ’is knees, an’ sat lookin’ straight before ’im.
“He hadn’t sat long in this way when they see’d a huge fish—about two futt long—comin’ slowly through the grove behind ’im. It was one o’ them creeters o’ the deep as seems to have had its head born five or six sizes too big for its tail—with eyes an’ mouth to match. It had also two great horns above its eyes, an’ a cravat or frill o’ bristles round its neck. Its round eyes and half-open mouth gave it the appearance o’ bein’ always more or less in a state of astonishment. P’r’aps it was—at the fact of its havin’ bin born at all! Anyhow, it swum’d slowly along till it cotched sight o’ Skinclip, when it went at him, an’ looked at the back of his helmet in great astonishment, an’ appeared to smell it, but evidently it could make nothin’ of it. Then it looked all down his back with an equal want of appreciation. Arter that it came round to the front, and looked straight in at Skinclip’s bull’s-eye! They do say it was a sight to see the start he gave!
“He jump up as smart a’most as if he’d bin in the open air, an’ they obsarved, when he turned round, that a huge lobster of some unbeknown species was holdin’ on to his trousers with all its claws like a limpet! The fish—or ripslang, as one of the men called it, who said he knowed it well—turned out to be a pugnaceous creetur, for no sooner did it see Skinclip’s great eyes lookin’ at it in horror, than it set up its frill of spikes, threw for’ard the long horns, an’ went slap at the bull’s-eye fit to drive it in. Skinclip he putt down his head, an’ the ripslang made five or six charges at the helmet without much effect. Then it changed its tactics, turned on its side, wriggled under the helmet, an’ looked in at Skinclip with one of its glarin’ eyes close to the glass. At the same time the lobster gave him a tree-mendious tug behind. This was more than Skinclip could stand. They see’d him jump round, seize the life-line, an’ give it four deadly pulls, but his comrades paid no attention to it. The lobster gave him another tug, an’ the ripslang prepared for another charge. It seemed to have got some extra spikes set up in its wrath, for its whole body was bristlin’ more or less by this time.
“Again Skinclip tugged like a maniac at the line. The ripslang charged; the lobster tugged; the poor feller stepped back hastily, got his heels entangled in sea-weed, and went down head first into the grove!
“The men got alarmed by this time, so they pulled him up as fast as they could, an’ got him inboard in a few minutes; but they do say,” added Maxwell, with emphasis, “that that ripslang leaped right out o’ the water arter him, an’ the lobster held on so that they had to chop its claws off with a hatchet to make it let go. They supped off it the game night, and long Tom Skinclip, who owned an over strong appetite, had a bad fit of indisgestion in consikence.”