After he had listened to the crabs for a while with no success, he put the fidgit into the tank and began to listen to that. I had to leave him at this moment to go and attend to some duties on the deck. But presently I heard him below shouting for me to come down again.
"Stubbins," he cried as soon as he saw me--"a most extraordinary thing-- Quite unbelievable--I'm not sure whether I'm dreaming--Can't believe my own senses. I--I--I--"
"Why, Doctor," I said, "what is it?--What's the matter?"
"The fidgit," he whispered, pointing with a trembling finger to the listening-tank in which the little round fish was still swimming quietly, "he talks English! And--and--and HE WHISTLES TUNES--English tunes!"
"Talks English!" I cried--"Whistles!--Why, it's impossible."
"It's a fact," said the Doctor, white in the face with excitement. "It's only a few words, scattered, with no particular sense to them-- all mixed up with his own language which I can't make out yet. But they're English words, unless there's something very wrong with my hearing-- And the tune he whistles, it's as plain as anything--always, the same tune. Now you listen and tell me what you make of it. Tell me everything you hear.
Don't miss a word."
I went to the glass tank upon the table while the Doctor grabbed a note-book and a pencil. Undoing my collar I stood upon the empty packing-case he had been using for a stand and put my right ear down under the water.
For some moments I detected nothing at all--except, with my dry ear, the heavy breathing of the Doctor as he waited, all stiff and anxious, for me to say something. At last from within the water, sounding like a child singing miles and miles away, I heard an unbelievably thin, small voice.
"Ah!" I said.
"What is it?" asked the Doctor in a hoarse, trembly whisper.
"What does he say?"
"I can't quite make it out," I said. "It's mostly in some strange fish language--Oh, but wait a minute!--Yes, now I get it--'No smoking'. . . . 'My, here's a queer one!' 'Popcorn and picture postcards here .. . . . . This way out .. . . . . Don't spit'--What funny things to say, Doctor!--Oh, but wait!-- Now he's whistling the tune."
"What tune is it?" gasped the Doctor.
"John Peel."
"Ah hah," cried the Doctor, "that's what I made it out to be."
And he wrote furiously in his note-book.
I went on listening.
"This is most extraordinary," the Doctor kept muttering to himself as his pencil went wiggling over the page--"Most extraordinary-- but frightfully thrilling. I wonder where he--"
"Here's some more," I cried--"some more English. . . . 'THE BIG TANK NEEDS CLEANING'.... That's all. Now he's talking fish-talk again."
"The big tank!" the Doctor murmured frowning in a puzzled kind of way. "I wonder where on earth he learned--"
Then he bounded up out of his chair.
"I have it," he yelled, "this fish has escaped from an aquarium.
Why, of course! Look at the kind of things he has learned:
'Picture postcards'--they always sell them in aquariums; 'Don't spit'; 'No smoking'; 'This way out'--the things the attendants say. And then, 'My, here's a queer one!' That's the kind of thing that people exclaim when they look into the tanks. It all fits. There's no doubt about it, Stubbins: we have here a fish who has escaped from captivity. And it's quite possible-- not certain, by any means, but quite possible--that I may now, through him, be able to establish communication with the shellfish. This is a great piece of luck."
