Ten minutes later little Kotick did not recognize his friends any more, for their skins were ripped off from the nose to the hind flippers⁠—whipped off and thrown down on the ground in a pile.

That was enough for Kotick. He turned and galloped (a seal can gallop very swiftly for a short time) back to the sea, his little new mustache bristling with horror. At Sea-Lion’s Neck, where the great sea-lions sit on the edge of the surf, he flung himself flipper overhead into the cool water, and rocked there, gasping miserably. “What’s here?” said a sea-lion, gruffly; for as a rule the sea-lions keep themselves to themselves.

“ Scoochnie! Ochen scoochnie! ” (“I’m lonesome, very lonesome!”), said Kotick. “They’re killing all the holluschickie on all the beaches!”