There was
a bed of bright sand at the bottom, strewn with coral and rock-work;
and the fishes went gleaming about, now turning up the sheen of a
golden side, and now vanishing into the shadows of the water, like
the fanciful thoughts that coquet with a poet in his dream. Never
before, I imagine, did a company of water-drinkers remain so entirely
uncontaminated by the bad example around them; nor could I help
wondering that it had not occurred to any freakish inebriate to empty
a glass of liquor into their lakelet. What a delightful idea! Who
would not be a fish, if he could inhale jollity with the essential
element of his existence!
I had begun to despair of meeting old Moodie, when, all at once, I
recognized his hand and arm protruding from behind a screen that was
set up for the accommodation of bashful topers. As a matter of
course, he had one of Priscilla's little purses, and was quietly
insinuating it under the notice of a person who stood near. This was
always old Moodie's way. You hardly ever saw him advancing towards
you, but became aware of his proximity without being able to guess
how he had come thither. He glided about like a spirit, assuming
visibility close to your elbow, offering his petty trifles of
merchandise, remaining long enough for you to purchase, if so
disposed, and then taking himself off, between two breaths, while you
happened to be thinking of something else.
By a sort of sympathetic impulse that often controlled me in those
more impressible days of my life, I was induced to approach this old
man in a mode as undemonstrative as his own.
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