r
word, and he set his teeth very hard.

And the dog opened at once; and went away at the back of the cottage,
over the road, and over the meadow, and through a bit of alder copse;
and there, upon an alder stump, they saw Tom's clothes lying. And then
they knew as much about it all as there was any need to know.

And Tom?

Ah, now comes the most wonderful part of this wonderful story. Tom, when
he woke, for of course he woke--children always wake after they have
slept exactly as long as is good for them--found himself swimming about
in the stream, being about four inches, or--that I may be
accurate--3.87902 inches long, and having round the parotid region of
his fauces a set of external gills (I hope you understand all the big
words) just like those of a sucking eft, which he mistook for a lace
frill, till he pulled at them, found he hurt himself, and made up his
mind that they were part of himself, and best left alone.

In fact, the fairies had turned him into a water-baby.

A water-baby? You never heard of a water-baby. Perhaps not. That is the
very reason why this story was written. There are a great many things in
the world which you never heard of; and a great many more which nobody
ever heard of; and a great many things, too, which nobody will ever hear
of, at least until the coming of the Cocqcigrues, when man shall be the
measure of all things.

"But there are no such things as water-babies."

How do you know that? Have you been there to see? And if you had been
there to see, and had seen none, that would not prove that there were
none. If Mr. Garth does not find a fox in Eversley Wood--as folks
sometimes fear he never will--that does not prove that there are no such
things as foxes. And as is Eversley Wood to all the woods in England, so
are the waters we know to all the waters in the world. And no one has a
right to say that no water-babies exist, till they have seen no
water-babies existing; which is quite a different thing, mind, from not
seeing water-babies; and a thing which nobody ever did, or perhaps ever
will do.

"But surely if there were water-babies, somebody would have caught one
at least?"

Well. How do you know that somebody has not?

"But they would have put it into spirits, or into the _Illustrated
News_, or perhaps cut it into two halves, poor dear little thing, and
sent one to Professor Owen, and one to Professor Huxley, to see what
they would each say about it."

Ah, my dear li