Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 5).djvu/129



HE seal is an affable fellow, though sloppy. He is friendly to man; providing the journalist with copy, the diplomatist with lying practice, and the punster with shocking opportunities. Ungrateful for these benefits, however, or perhaps savage at them, man responds by knocking the seal on the head. and taking his skin; an injury which the seal avenges by driving man into the Bankruptcy Court with bills for his wife's jackets. The puns instigated by the seal are of a sort to make one long for the animal's extermination. It is quite possible that this is really what the seal wants, because to become extinct and to occupy a place of honour beside the dodo is a distinction much coveted amongst the lower animals. The dodo was a squabby, ugly, dumpy, not to say fat-headed, bird when it lived; now it is a hero of romance. Possibly this is what the seal is