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 to find no water-babies ! How hard ! Well , it did seem hard : but people , even little babies , can not have all they want without waiting for it , and working for it too , my little man , as you will find out some day . And Tom sat upon the buoy long days , long weeks , looking out to sea , and wondering when the water-babies would come back ; and yet they never came . Then he began to ask all the strange things which came in out of the sea if they had seen any ; and some said `` Yes , '' and some said nothing at all . He asked the bass and the pollock ; but they were so greedy after the shrimps that they did not care to answer him a word . Then there came in a whole fleet of purple sea-snails , floating along , each on a sponge full of foam , and Tom said , `` Where do you come from , you pretty creatures ? and have you seen the water - babies ? '' And the sea-snails answered , `` Whence we come we know not ; and whither we are going , who can tell ? We float out our life in the mid-ocean , with the warm sunshine above our heads , and the warm gulf-stream below ; and that is enough for us . Yes ; perhaps we have seen the water-babies . We have seen many strange things as we sailed along . '' And they floated away , the happy stupid things , and all went ashore upon the sands .
Then there came in a great lazy sunfish , as big as a fat pig cut in half ; and he seemed XXXXX have been cut in half too , and squeezed in a clothes-press till he was flat ; but to all his big body and big fins he had only a little rabbit 's mouth , no bigger than Tom 's ; and , when Tom questioned him , he answered in a little squeaky feeble voice : `` I 'm sure I do n't know ; I 've lost my way .
So after for from of on out to upon with