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Updated: May 13, 2025
"It was a lucky punch that put me out," he kept repeating, almost pathetically. "You know Fitz's lucky punch." I might have seen what was in the wind if I hadn't been thick-headed, what with the champagne and the rattles. "Boiler-plate" once started on the ring, it was an easy transition. "You've boxing gloves, haven't you, Jack?" asked Natica. "Get them for Mr. Hartopp.
A month went by two of them. Natica Drayton wasn't the strain that needs spectacles to see through things. Then, too, I guessed the loving friend sympathy racket was being worked by some of the bridge whist aggregation which met up with her every fortnight. She laughed more than she ought to have done. This was a bad sign with her. Once or twice, when the three of us dined together, and she was almost noisy over the benedictine, I could have choked Jack Drayton, for he didn't see. It's not a pretty thing for an outsider to sit
Two minutes later I emerged, to face Drayton and the Hartopp unloading from an electric hansom. The under-toned remark of one of the footman came to me: "A bit behind schedule time to-night, eh, Charley?" There wasn't anything to do then, for they were fair inside. "Boiler-plate" was finishing some elephantine pleasantry to Natica, when he saw what I saw.
Natica, a smear of red on the front of her frock, stood beside him, with a strangely happy expression in her face and pose. A great many things had been pushed over the precipice which leads to forgetfulness, in the time I had been out on the sidewalk busy with the cabby. "Good-night, Percy," Jack called out.
But in the case of the Natica this regular segmentation changes its character, and at a certain period, in a more or less advanced stage of the segmentation, according to the species, each portion of the yolk assumes an individuality of its own, and, instead of uniting again with the rest, begins to subdivide for itself.
The name is not a bad one, with the exception that the saucer lacks a bottom; but the form of these circular bands of sand is certainly very like a saucer with the bottom knocked out. Hold one of them against the light and you will see that it is composed of countless transparent spheres, each of the size of a small pin's head. These are the eggs of our common Natica or Sea-Snail.
I think the man was just about to take the count from sheer nerves, when he made me out in the doorway. Natica winked actually winked at me as he floundered over his share of the introduction. Looking at her, and faintly divining her mood that night, I felt sorry for Jack, for "Boiler-plate" and for myself. I left them for a moment and went in to see about my table.
At our feet, a smooth, globular object, of the size of a crab-apple, is lying half-buried in the sand. Taking it in your hand, you find it to be a univalve shell, the inhabitant of which is concealed behind a closely-fitting door, resembling a flake of undissolved glue. It is a Natica. Place it gently in this pool and watch for a few moments.
Was it possible that, after all, Natica Drayton had really decided to toss Jack over, and take on a fag, warranted kind and gentle, able to be driven by any lady? But I forgot that foolish notion pretty nearly right off. "There is a husband," she went on, as if taking account of stock. "There always is," I rejoined. "Some of 'em are good and the others are bad."
In the North-eastern province we find off Cumberland Island in 27 fathoms, also on a muddy bottom, species of Murex, Nassa, Turritella, Ranella pusilla, a Fusus, Cancellaria antiquata, a Terebra, two Dentalia, a Natica, a Terebellum, a Scalaria, a Cardium, a Venus, a Nucula, a Pecten, and a Spondylus.
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