A FISH STORY

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21355, 24 December 1934, Page 13 (Supplement)

A FISH STORY

(By D.G.) August Caesar was a fish who graced a little goldfish dish. Now goldfish have, of all their kind, the simplest and most fishlike mind and nothing ever goes to show that in their mind ambitions grow —ambitions that are just as bad as any that mankind has had. But Caesar often thought about the things he'd do if he got out, and it was with a worldly eye ho watched the world go passing by. "Some day," he told the buzzing flies. "I'll give you all a big surprise, for some day I will swim to where Hie mermaids comb their golden hair and where the joyous wavelets leap upon the bosom of the deep. A goldfish in a goldfish bowl becomes a fish without a soul." They put him in the bath one day to swim around a bit, and play, but when they put him back again he took a hea'der down the drain. "Ha, ha!" he said, "the time is ripe'" and wriggled through the bathroom pipe. And still in something of a flutter he swam along a nearby gutter and with a most exciting shiver shot into the Avon river. Although objecting to the taste, he made considerable haste until at length he reached the flood that hides the estuary mud. At sunset and the evening star he swam across the Sumner bar, and at the rhythmic roll and plunge ot ocean made a carefree lunge and leapt as leap the young and brave from crest to crest of wave on wave. And boldened by the salty tang he simply didn't give a hang for fish that crawl or fish that creep or fish that tipple in the deep. Rejoicing in these deep-sea jovs he made a happy fishlike noise to show that of all goldfish he alone was bold, alone was free. Alas, the noise stuck in his gullet when up there cruised a hungry mullet. The brightest eye would shed a tear were I to give the details here, but swallowed greedily ere long our little goldfish sang no song; but in the mullet's belly lav digesting, for a night and day. Bu( jusf a second please, my friend, the story's not yet at an end. The mullet shortly met his fate by swallowing a hook and bait, and (by the merest fluke, of course) was cooked and served with parsley sauce within the home our goldfish had when he was young. Oh it was sad—they'd gi-atified his every whim, they'd petted, named and nourished him and quite unwittingly were they nourished by him that fateful day. Now in that house no goldfish swims, nor any goldfish synonyms; the bowl that knew his early years is daily filled with human tears. But there (they say) at dead of ni<*ht a fishy form all bathed in light, a lonely little goldfish soul still haunts the little goldfish bowL