Page:The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle.djvu/237

 hide behind a stone from the stupid gaze of the children who thronged about our tank, 'supposing that we pretended we were sick: do you think they would take us also from this stuffy house?'

"'Brother,' said she wearily, 'that they might do. But most likely they would throw us on a rubbish-heap, where we would die in the hot sun.'

'But,' said I, 'why should they go abroad to seek a rubbish-heap, when the harbor is so close? While we were being brought here I saw men throwing their rubbish into the water. If they would only throw us also there, we could quickly reach the sea.'

"'The Sea!' murmured poor Clippa with a faraway look in her eyes (she had fine eyes, had my sister, Clippa). 'How like a dream it sounds—the Sea! Oh brother, will we ever swim in it again, think you? Every night as I lie awake on the floor of this evil-smelling dungeon I hear its hearty voice ringing in my ears. How I have longed for it! Just to feel it once again, the nice, big, wholesome homeliness of it all! To jump, just to jump from the crest of an Atlantic wave, laughing in the trade wind's spindrift, down into the blue-green swirling trough! To chase the shrimps on a summer evening, when the sky is red and the light's all pink within the foam! To lie on the top, in the doldrums' noonday calm, and warm your tummy in the tropic sun! To wander hand in hand once more