THE WATER BABIES
water, the land, or the air, matters not, provided you can only keep on continually being a baby.
So the giant ran round after the people, and the people ran round after the giant, and they are running unto this day for aught I know, or do not know; and will run till either he, or they, or both, turn into little children. And then, as Shakespeare says (and therefore it must be true):—
"Jack shall have Gill
Naught shall go ill
The man shall have his mare again, and all go well."
Then Tom came to a very famous island, which was called, in the days of the great traveller, Captain Gulliver, the Isle of Laputa. But Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid has named it over again the Isle of Tomtoddies, all heads and no bodies.
And when Tom came near it, he heard such a grumbling and grunting and growling and wailing and weeping and whining that he thought people must be ringing little pigs, or cropping puppies' ears, or drowning kittens; but when he came nearer still, he began to hear words among the noise; which was the Tomtoddies' song which they sing morning and evening, and all night too, to their great idol Examination—
"I can't learn my lesson: the examiner's coming!"
And that was the only song which they knew.
And when Tom got on shore the first thing he saw
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