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 . 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 leap-frogs which you make out of a goose 's breast-bone . 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 -LRB- and nobody knows what that sixth sense is -RRB- , 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 could n't do that . '' Tom asked him about water-babies . `` Yes , '' he said . He had seen them often . But he did not think much of them . They were meddlesome little creatures , that went about helping fish and shells which got into scrapes . Well , for his part , he should be ashamed to be helped by little soft creatures that had not even a shell on their backs . He had lived quite long enough in the world to take care of himself . He was a conceited fellow , the old lobster , and not very civil to Tom ; and you will hear how he had to alter his mind before he was done , as conceited people generally have . But he was so funny , and Tom so lonely , that he could not quarrel with him ; and they used to sit in holes in the rocks , and chat for hours . And about this time there happened to Tom a very strange and important adventure -- so important , indeed , that he was very near never finding the water-babies at all ; and I am sure you would have been sorry for that .
I hope XXXXX you have not forgotten the little white lady all this while .
For about as down if like of that till to