And then he left the buoy, and used to go along the sands and round the rocks, and come out in the night--like the forsaken Merman [Footnote: This beautiful poem which Kingsley speaks of here is Matthew Arnold's The Forsaken Merman, which you will find in Volume VII of these books.] in Mr. Arnold's beautiful, beautiful poem, which you must learn by heart some day--and sit upon a point of rock, among the shining sea weeds, in the low October tides, and cry and call for the water babies; but he never heard a voice call in return. And at last, with his fretting and crying, he grew quite lean and thin. But one day among the rocks he found a playfellow. It was not a water baby, alas! but it was a lobster; and a very distinguished lobster he was; for he had live barnacles on his claws, which is a great mark of distinction in lobsterdom, and no more to be bought for money than a good conscience or the Victoria Cross. [Footnote: The Victoria Cross is a decoration awarded British soldiers or sailors for distinguished bravery. The crosses are made from cannon captured in the Crimean War, and bear, under the crowned lion which is the British royal crest, the words "For Valour". No other military decoration is so prized.] Tom had never seen a lobster before; and he was mightily taken with this one; for he thought him the most curious, odd, ridiculous creature he had ever seen; and there he was not far wrong; for all the ingenious men, and all the scientific men, and all the fanciful men in the world, with all the old German bogy-painters into the bargain, could never invent, if all their wits were boiled into one, anything so curious, and so ridiculous, as a lobster. [Illustration: A LOBSTER] He had one claw knobbed and the other jagged; and Tom delighted in watching him hold on to the seaweed with his knobbed claw, while he cut up salads with his jagged one, and then put them into his mouth, after smelling at them, like a monkey. And always the little barnacles threw out their casting-nets and swept the water, and came in for their share of whatever there was for dinner. But Tom was most astonished to see how he fired himself off--snap! like the leapfrogs which you make out of a goose's breastbone. Certainly he took the most wonderful shots, and backwards, too. For, if he wanted to go into a narrow crack ten yards off, what do you think he did? If he had gone in head foremost, of course he could not have turned round. So he used to turn his tail to it, and lay his long horns, which carry his sixth sense in their tips (and nobody knows what that sixth sense is), straight down his back to guide him, and twist his eyes back till they almost came out of their sockets, and then made ready, present, fire, snap!--and away he went, pop into the hole; and peeped out and twiddled his whiskers, as much as to say, "You couldn't do that."