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SLIPPERY SOLOMON. 



Slippery Solomon was a gentleman who formerly lived in a cer- 

 tain aquarium in London. He is dead now; so there can be no 

 objection to my telling you all I know about him. I call him a 

 gentleman, because his manners and his appearance were polished 

 in the extreme; but perhaps most people would have called him an 

 eel. In point of fact he was an eel, though he preferred to be 

 called a fish. Perhaps you do not know that eels are fish. I have 

 met a gi'eat many grown people, and even some children, who did 

 not. " Eat eels ! " I have heard a man say. " AYhen I want to eat 

 fish I will eat fish ; and when I want to eat snakes I will eat snakes ; 

 but I won't eat eels." But the eel is a fish, for all that, and very 

 good to eat, as many people know. Thousands and thousands of 

 eels are caught in the streams and rivers of ^ew England, put in 

 barrels, and sent to ^ew York, where there are jilenty of people 

 ready to eat them. They are not pleasant things to cook, for even 

 when you have cut one up into small pieces, the pieces jump, and 

 squirm, and hop about in the frying-pan just as if they were still 

 alive. 



But about Slippery Solomon. He was a fine fellow, indeed, 

 nearly five feet long, smooth and glossy, and very handsome in 

 his way. Not a common eel was Solomon. Oh, dear, no! He 

 was an electric eel, and he came from the river Amazon, in — 

 oh, you know where the Amazon, is do you? I beg your pardon, 

 I'm sure! He had more names than most people, for beside the 

 two I have already mentioned, he was called Gymnotus by the 



