XXIV
AN ODD FAMILY
A gentleman travelling through Mecklenburg relates the following curious incident which happened at an inn at which he was staying. After dinner, the landlord placed on the floor a large dish of soup, and then gave a loud whistle. At once there came into the room a mastiff, a fine Angora cat, an old raven, and a remarkably large rat, with a bell about its neck. These four animals went to the dish, and without disturbing one another, fed together. After they had eaten, the dog, cat, and rat lay before the fire, and the raven hopped about the room.
XXV
THE DOLPHIN
In the reign of Augustus Cæsar there was, in the Lucrine lake, a dolphin which formed a most romantic attachment to the son of a poor man. The boy had to go every day from Baiæ to Puteoli to school, and such were the friendly terms on which he had got with the dolphin, that he had only to wait by the banks of the lake and cry, “Simo, Simo”—the name he had given to the animal, when, lo! Simo came scudding to the shore, let fall the sharp prickles of his skin, and gently offered his back for the boy to mount upon. The boy, nothing afraid, used to mount at once, and the dolphin, without either rein or spur, would speed across the sea to Puteoli, and after landing the young scholar, wait about the shore till it was time for the boy to go home, when it would again perform the same sort of friendly service. The boy was not ungrateful for such great kindness, and used every day to bring a good store of food for Simo, which the animal would take from his hand in the most tame and kindly manner imaginable. For several years this friendly intercourse was kept up. It was, in fact, only ended by the death of the boy. As the story goes, the dolphin felt so badly when the lad failed to come as usual, that it threw itself on the shore, and died, as was thought, of very grief and sorrow at the loss of its friend.
