fairy tale: and how
can one have a fairy tale if there are no fairies?

You don't see the logic of that? Perhaps not. Then please not to see the
logic of a great many arguments exactly like it, which you will hear
before your beard is grey.

The kind old dame came back at twelve, when school was over, to look at
Tom: but there was no Tom there. She looked about for his footprints;
but the ground was so hard that there was no slot, as they say in dear
old North Devon. And if you grow up to be a brave healthy man, you may
know some day what no slot means, and know too, I hope, what a slot does
mean--a broad slot, with blunt claws, which makes a man put out his
cigar, and set his teeth, and tighten his girths, when he sees it; and
what his rights mean, if he has them, brow, bay, tray, and points; and
see something worth seeing between Haddon Wood and Countisbury Cliff,
with good Mr. Palk Collyns to show you the way, and mend your bones as
fast as you smash them. Only when that jolly day comes, please don't
break your neck; stogged in a mire you never will be, I trust; for you
are a heath-cropper bred and born.

So the old dame went in again quite sulky, thinking that little Tom had
tricked her with a false story, and shammed ill, and then run away
again.

But she altered her mind the next day. For, when Sir John and the rest
of them had run themselves out of breath, and lost Tom, they went back
again, looking very foolish.

And they looked more foolish still when Sir John heard more of the story
from the nurse; and more foolish still, again, when they heard the whole
story from Miss Ellie, the little lady in white. All she had seen was a
poor little black chimney-sweep, crying and sobbing, and going to get
up the chimney again. Of course, she was very much frightened: and no
wonder. But that was all. The boy had taken nothing in the room; by the
mark of his little sooty feet, they could see that he had never been off
the hearthrug till the nurse caught hold of him. It was all a mistake.

So Sir John told Grimes to go home, and promised him five shillings if
he would bring the boy quietly up to him, without beating him, that he
might be sure of the truth. For he took for granted, and Grimes too,
that Tom had made his way home.

But no Tom came back to Mr. Grimes that evening; and he went to the
police-office, to tell them to look out for the boy. But no Tom was
heard of. As for his having gone over those great fell