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An eel-mother and her son were lying at the bottom of the sea, close to the landing-stage, watching a young fisherman getting ready his line.

“Just look at him!” said the eel-mother, “there you have an example of the malice and cunning of the world . … Watch him! He is holding a whip in his hand; he throws out the whip-lash–there it is! attached to it is a weight which makes it sink–there’s the weight! and below the weight is the hook with the worm. Don’t take it in your mouth, whatever you do, for if you do, you are caught. As a rule only the silly bass and red-eyes take the bait. There! Now you know all about it.”

The forest of seaweed with its shells and snails began to rock; a plashing and drumming could be heard and a huge red whale passed like a flash over their heads; he had a tail-fin like a cork-screw, and that was what he worked with.

“That’s a steamer,” said the eel-mother; “make room!”

She had hardly spoken these words when a furious uproar arose above. There was a tramping and stamping as if the people overhead were intent on building a bridge between the shore and the boat in two seconds. But it was difficult to see anything on account of the oil and soot which were making the water thick and muddy.

There was something very heavy on the bridge now, so heavy that it made it creak, and men’s voices were shouting:

“Lift it up!–Ho, there!–Up!–Hold tight!–Up with it!–Up!–Push it along!–Lift it up!”

Then something indescribable happened. First it sounded as if sixty piles of wood were all being sawn at the same time; then a cleft opened in the water which went down to the bottom of the sea, and there, wedged between three stones, stood a black box, which sang and played and tinkled and jingled, close to the eel-mother and her son, who hastily disappeared in the lowest depths of the ocean.

Then a voice up above shouted:–

“Three fathoms deep! Impossible! Leave it alone. It isn’t worth while hauling the old lumber up again; it would cost more to repair than it’s worth.”

The voice belonged to the master of the mine, whose piano had fallen into the sea.

Silence followed; the huge fish with a fin like a screw swam away, and the silence deepened.

After sunset a breeze arose; the black box in the forest of seaweed rocked and knocked against the stones, and at every knock it played, so that the fishes came swimming from all directions to watch and to listen.

The eel-mother was the first to put in an appearance. And when she saw herself reflected in the polished surface, she said: “It’s a wardrobe with a plate-glass door.”

There was logic in her remark, and therefore all the others said: “It is a wardrobe with a plate-glass door.”

Next a rock-fish arrived and smelt at the candlesticks, which had not yet come off. Tiny bits of candle ends were still sticking in the sockets. “That’s something to eat,” it said, “if only it weren’t for the whipcord!”

Then a great bass came and lay flat on the pedal; but immediately there arose such a rumbling in the box that all the fishes hastily swam away.

They got no further on that day.

At night it blew half a gale, and the musical box went thump, thump, thump, like a pavier’s beetle, until sunrise. When the eel-mother and all the rest of them returned, they found that it had undergone a change.

The lid stood open like a shark’s mouth; they saw a row of teeth, bigger than they had ever seen before, but every other tooth was black. The whole machine was swollen at the sides like a seed-fish; the boards were bent, and the pedal pointed upwards like a foot in the act of walking; the arms of the candlesticks looked like clenched fists. It was a dreadful sight!