BROTHERING FISH 



are a good lip-reader you cannot fail to decipher the 

 syllables which seem to issue in watery waves. 

 They say, "Oh! Oh! Brother! Brother! Oh! Oh!" 

 And you answer them in kind, speaking from the 

 safe, dry, airy room of your helmet. They are so 

 friendly, so curious, so utterly unlike the nervous, 

 useless -lived inmates of our aquariums. 



Your attention swings from wonders to marvels 

 and back again. You begin to say things to your- 

 self, gasps of surprise, inarticulate sounds of awe, 

 you are troubled with a terrible sense of loss that 

 (as the case may be) twenty, thirty or fifty years 

 of your life have passed and gone without your 

 knowing of the ease of entry into this new world. 

 Are you under water .^^ There is no sense of wet- 

 ness, the air you breathe is, if anything, better 

 than that in the motor-boat rocking overhead. 

 You hold up your hand and see little washer- 

 woman's wrinkles on the soles of your fingers and 

 you realize you are where you are. A great blue 

 enameled fish glides past, then suddenly stands 

 straight upon his head and mumbles something; a 

 skein of fairy lace drifts against your helmet; to 

 your friends in the boat it is merely a school of 

 jelly-fish. 



Only a moment has passed since you left the 

 world overhead, or was it many hours .'^ A gentle 

 tug comes along the hose and you resent this 

 reminder of an existence which you had almost 

 forgotten. But you rise and half walk, half float 

 to the swaying ladder, and regretfully mount it. 



5 



