If I had only been where you have been , to see what you have seen ! '' `` Well , '' said Tom , `` if you want to do that , you had best put your head under water for a few hours , as I did , and turn into a water - baby , or some other baby , and then you might have a chance . '' `` Turn into a baby , eh ? If I could do that , and know what was happening to me for but one hour , I should know everything then , and be at rest . But I ca n't ; I ca n't be a little child again ; and I suppose if I could , it would be no use , because then I should then know nothing about what was happening to me . Ah , you lucky little dog ! '' said the poor old giant . `` But why do you run after all these poor people ? '' said Tom , who liked the giant very much . `` My dear , it 's they that have been running after me , father and son , for hundreds and hundreds of years , throwing stones at me till they have knocked off my spectacles fifty times , and calling me a malignant and a turbaned Turk , who beat a Venetian and traduced the State -- goodness only knows what they mean , for I never read poetry - - and hunting me round and round -- though catch me they ca n't , for every time I go over the same ground , I go the faster , and grow the bigger . While all I want is to be friends with them , and to tell them something to their advantage , like Mr. Joseph Ady : only somehow they are so strangely afraid of hearing it . But , I suppose I am not a man of the world , and have no tact . '' `` But why do n't you turn round and tell them so ? '' `` Because I ca n't . You see , I am one of the sons of Epimetheus , and must go backwards , if I am to go at all . '' `` But why do n't you stop , and let them come up to you ? '' `` Why , my dear , only think . If I did , all the butterflies and cockyolybirds would fly past me , and then I should catch no more new species , and should grow rusty and mouldy , and die . And I do n't intend to do that , my dear ; for I have a destiny before me , they say : though what it is I do n't know , and do n't care . '' `` Do n't care ? ''
said XXXXX .
Ady Epimetheus State Tom Turk Venetian cockyolybirds hour hours years