But when the tide rises and sharks are around,

His voice has a timid and tremulous sound.

“ ’Tis the voice of the Lobster; I heard him declare, ‘You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair.’ As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes.”

When the sands are all dry, he is gay as a lark, And will talk in contemptuous tones of the Shark, But when the tide rises and sharks are around, His voice has a timid and tremulous sound.

“That’s different from what I used to say when I was a child,” said the Gryphon.

“Well, I never heard it before,” said the Mock Turtle; “but it sounds uncommon nonsense.”