He felt as strong , and light , and fresh , as if his veins had run champagne ; and gave , he did not know why , three skips out of the water , a yard high , and head over heels , just as the salmon do when they first touch the noble rich salt water , which , as some wise men tell us , is the mother of all living things . He did not care now for the tide being against him . The red buoy was in sight , dancing in the open sea ; and to the buoy he would go , and to it he went . He passed great shoals of bass and mullet , leaping and rushing in after the shrimps , but he never heeded them , or they him ; and once he passed a great black shining seal , who was coming in after the mullet . The seal put his head and shoulders out of water , and stared at him , looking exactly like a fat old greasy negro with a gray pate . And Tom , instead of being frightened , said , `` How d'ye do , sir ; what a beautiful place the sea is ! '' And the old seal , instead of trying to bite him , looked at him with his soft sleepy winking eyes , and said , `` Good tide to you , my little man ; are you looking for your brothers and sisters ? I passed them all at play outside . '' `` Oh , then , '' said Tom , `` I shall have playfellows at last , '' and he swam on to the buoy , and got upon it -LRB- for he was quite out of breath -RRB- and sat there , and looked round for water-babies : but there were none to be seen . The sea-breeze came in freshly with the tide and blew the fog away ; and the little waves danced for joy around the buoy , and the old buoy danced with them . The shadows of the clouds ran races over the bright blue bay , and yet never caught each other up ; and the breakers plunged merrily upon the wide white sands , and jumped up over the rocks , to see what the green fields inside were like , and tumbled down and broke themselves all to pieces , and never minded it a bit , but mended themselves and jumped up again . And the terns hovered over Tom like huge white dragon-flies with black heads , and the gulls laughed like girls at play , and the sea-pies , with their red bills and legs , flew to and fro from shore to shore , and whistled sweet and wild . And Tom looked and looked , and listened ; and he would have been very happy , if he could only have seen the water-babies . Then when the tide turned , he left the buoy , and swam round and round in search of them : but in vain . Sometimes he thought he heard them laughing : but it was only the laughter of the ripples . And sometimes he thought he saw them at the bottom : but it was only white and pink shells . And once he was sure he had found one , for he saw two bright eyes peeping out of the sand . So he dived down , and began scraping the sand away , and cried , `` Do n't hide ; I do want some one to play with so much ! '' And out jumped a great turbot with his ugly eyes and mouth all awry , and flopped away along the bottom , knocking poor Tom over . And he sat down at the bottom of the sea , and cried salt tears from sheer disappointment .
To have come all this way , and faced so many dangers , and yet XXXXX find no water-babies !
against along for if in like over to upon with