He longed to keep Tom , and yet he half wished he never had caught him ; and at last he quite longed to get rid of him . So he turned away and poked Tom with his finger , for want of anything better to do ; and said carelessly , `` My dear little maid , you must have dreamt of water-babies last night , your head is so full of them . '' Now Tom had been in the most horrible and unspeakable fright all the while ; and had kept as quiet as he could , though he was called a Holothurian and a Cephalopod ; for it was fixed in his little head that if a man with clothes on caught him , he might put clothes on him too , and make a dirty black chimney-sweep of him again . But , when the professor poked him , it was more than he could bear ; and , between fright and rage , he turned to bay as valiantly as a mouse in a corner , and bit the professor 's finger till it bled . `` Oh ! ah ! yah ! '' cried he ; and glad of an excuse to be rid of Tom , dropped him on to the seaweed , and thence he dived into the water and was gone in a moment . `` But it was a water-baby , and I heard it speak ! '' cried Ellie . `` Ah , it is gone ! '' And she jumped down off the rock , to try and catch Tom before he slipped into the sea . Too late ! and what was worse , as she sprang down , she slipped , and fell some six feet , with her head on a sharp rock , and lay quite still . The professor picked her up , and tried to waken her , and called to her , and cried over her , for he loved her very much : but she would not waken at all . So he took her up in his arms and carried her to her governess , and they all went home ; and little Ellie was put to bed , and lay there quite still ; only now and then she woke up and called out about the water-baby : but no one knew what she meant , and the professor did not tell , for he was ashamed to tell . And , after a week , one moonlight night , the fairies came flying in at the window and brought her such a pretty pair of wings that she could not help putting them on ; and she flew with them out of the window , and over the land , and over the sea , and up through the clouds , and nobody heard or saw anything of her for a very long while . And this is why they say that no one has ever yet seen a water - baby . For my part , I believe that the naturalists get dozens of them when they are out dredging ; but they say nothing about them , and throw them overboard again , for fear of spoiling their theories . But , you see the professor was found out , as every one is in due time .
A very terrible old fairy found the professor XXXXX ; she felt his bumps , and cast his nativity , and took the lunars of him carefully inside and out ; and so she knew what he would do as well as if she had seen it in a print book , as they say in the dear old west country ; and he did it ; and so he was found out beforehand , as everybody always is ; and the old fairy will find out the naturalists some day , and put them in the Times , and then on whose side will the laugh be ?
So as at before between for on out than with