Finding Nemo the dentist, Gill helps Nemo escape into a drain that leads to the ocean. Having mistaken Nemo for dead, Marlin thanks Dory and starts his return journey. Dory meets Nemo when he reaches the ocean, but she has lost her memory. Eventually, Dory's memory returns when she reads the word "Sydney" on a drainpipe. She reunites Nemo with Marlin, but she is caught in a fishing net with a school of grouper. Nemo enters the net and orders the grouper to swim downward to break the net and they all escape. Later, having returned home, Marlin and Dory proudly watch
Little Nemo the strip's copyright, but McCay won a lawsuit that allowed him to continue using the characters. In the "American", the strip ran under the title "In the Land of Wonderful Dreams". The "Herald" was unsuccessful in finding another cartoonist to continue the original strip. McCay left Hearst in May 1924 and returned to the "Herald Tribune". He began "Little Nemo in Slumberland" afresh that August 3. The new strip displayed the virtuoso technique of the old, but the panels were laid out in an unvarying grid. Nemo took a more passive role in the stories, and there was no continuity.