ough to
tell you now), their skulls grow flat, their jaws grow out, and their
brains grow small, and their tails grow long, and they lose all their
ribs (which I am sure you would not like to do), and their skins grow
dirty and spotted, and they never get into the clear rivers, much less
into the great wide sea, but hang about in dirty ponds, and live in the
mud, and eat worms, as they deserve to do._

_But that is no reason why you should ill-use them: but only why you
should pity them, and be kind to them, and hope that some day they will
wake up, and be ashamed of their nasty, dirty, lazy, stupid life, and
try to amend, and become something better once more. For, perhaps, if
they do so, then after 379,423 years, nine months, thirteen days, two
hours, and twenty-one minutes (for aught that appears to the contrary),
if they work very hard and wash very hard all that time, their brains
may grow bigger, and their jaws grow smaller, and their ribs come back,
and their tails wither off, and they will turn into water-babies again,
and perhaps after that into land-babies; and after that perhaps into
grown men._

_You know they won't? Very well, I daresay you know best. But you see,
some folks have a great liking for those poor little efts. They never
did anybody any harm, or could if they tried; and their only fault is,
that they do no good--any more than some thousands of their betters. But
what with ducks, and what with pike, and what with sticklebacks, and
what with water-beetles, and what with naughty boys, they are "sae sair
hadden doun," as the Scotsmen say, that it is a wonder how they live;
and some folks can't help hoping, with good Bishop Butler, that they may
have another chance, to make things fair and even, somewhere, somewhen,
somehow._

_Meanwhile, do you learn your lessons, and thank God that you have
plenty of cold water to wash in; and wash in it too, like a true
Englishman. And then, if my story is not true, something better is; and
if I am not quite right, still you will be, as long as you stick to hard
work and cold water._

_But remember always, as I told you at first, that this is all a fairy
tale, and only fun and pretence: and, therefore, you are not to believe
a word of it, even if it is true._

THE END

_Printed in Great Britain by R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, Edinburgh._

* * * * *

Transcriber's Notes:

Obvious punctuation errors repaired.

Page 6, "pie