n a caddis with a
house-door before: so what must he do, the meddlesome little fellow, but
pull it open, to see what the poor lady was doing inside. What a shame!
How should you like to have any one breaking your bedroom-door in, to
see how you looked when you were in bed? So Tom broke to pieces the
door, which was the prettiest little grating of silk, stuck all over
with shining bits of crystal; and when he looked in, the caddis poked
out her head, and it had turned into just the shape of a bird's. But
when Tom spoke to her she could not answer; for her mouth and face were
tight tied up in a new night-cap of neat pink skin. However, if she
didn't answer, all the other caddises did; for they held up their hands
and shrieked like the cats in Struwwelpeter: "_Oh, you nasty horrid boy;
there you are at it again! And she had just laid herself up for a
fortnight's sleep, and then she would have come out with such beautiful
wings, and flown about, and laid such lots of eggs: and now you have
broken her door, and she can't mend it because her mouth is tied up for
a fortnight, and she will die. Who sent you here to worry us out of our
lives?_"

So Tom swam away. He was very much ashamed of himself, and felt all the
naughtier; as little boys do when they have done wrong and won't say so.

Then he came to a pool full of little trout, and began tormenting them,
and trying to catch them: but they slipped through his fingers, and
jumped clean out of water in their fright. But as Tom chased them, he
came close to a great dark hover under an alder root, and out floushed a
huge old brown trout ten times as big as he was, and ran right against
him, and knocked all the breath out of his body; and I don't know which
was the more frightened of the two.

Then he went on sulky and lonely, as he deserved to be; and under a
bank he saw a very ugly dirty creature sitting, about half as big as
himself; which had six legs, and a big stomach, and a most ridiculous
head with two great eyes and a face just like a donkey's.

"Oh," said Tom, "you are an ugly fellow to be sure!" and he began making
faces at him; and put his nose close to him, and halloed at him, like a
very rude boy.

When, hey presto; all the thing's donkey-face came off in a moment, and
out popped a long arm with a pair of pincers at the end of it, and
caught Tom by the nose. It did not hurt him much; but it held him quite
tight.

"Yah, ah! Oh, let me go!" cried Tom.

"Then