37. And then Tom left the buoy and used to go along the sands and round the rocks, and come out in the night and cry and call for the water-babies; but he never heard a voice call in return. And at last, with his fretting and crying, he grew lean and thin.
38. But one day among the rocks he found a playfellow. It was not a water-baby, alas! but it was a lobster; and a very distinguished lobster he was, for he had live barnacles on his claws, which is a great mark of distinction in lobsterdom.
39. Tom had never seen a lobster before, and he was mightily taken with this one, for he thought him the most curious, odd, ridiculous creature he had ever seen; and there he was not far wrong, for all the ingenious men and all the scientific men and all the fanciful men in the world could never invent, if all their wits were boiled into one, anything so curious and so ridiculous as a lobster.
40. He had one claw knobbed and the other jagged; and Tom delighted in watching him hold on to the seaweed with his knobbed claw while he cut up salads with his jagged one, and then put them into his mouth after smelling at them like a monkey.
41. Tom asked him about water-babies. Yes, he said, he had seen them often. But he did not think much of them. They were meddlesome little creatures that went about helping fish and shells which got into scrapes. Well, for his part, he would be ashamed to be helped by little, soft creatures that had not even a shell on their backs. He had lived quite long enough in the world to take care of himself.
42. He was a conceited fellow, the old lobster, and not very civil to Tom. But he was so funny and Tom so lonely that he could not quarrel with him; and they used to sit in holes in the rocks and chat for hours.
I. Bŭr´rō̍ws̝: holes in the ground made for homes by certain animals. Hȯv´ẽrs̝: covers; shelters. Swĩrl´ĭng: whirling. Strĭds: passages between steep rocks or banks, so narrow that they look as if they might be crossed at a stride. Căt´ȧ răcts: great falls of water over steep places.