`` You 're dead , '' said Tom , looking at him as he stood on his knee as white as a ghost . `` No , I ai n't ! '' answered a little squeaking voice over his head . `` This is me up here , in my ball-dress ; and that 's my skin . Ha , ha ! you could not do such a trick as that ! '' And no more Tom could , nor Houdin , nor Robin , nor Frikell , nor all the conjurors in the world . For the little rogue had jumped clean out of his own skin , and left it standing on Tom 's knee , eyes , wings , legs , tail , exactly as if it had been alive . `` Ha , ha ! '' he said , and he jerked and skipped up and down , never stopping an instant , just as if he had St. Vitus 's dance . `` Ai n't I a pretty fellow now ? '' And so he was ; for his body was white , and his tail orange , and his eyes all the colours of a peacock 's tail . And what was the oddest of all , the whisks at the end of his tail had grown five times as long as they were before . `` Ah ! '' said he , `` now I will see the gay world . My living , wo n't cost me much , for I have no mouth , you see , and no inside ; so I can never be hungry nor have the stomach-ache neither . '' No more he had . He had grown as dry and hard and empty as a quill , as such silly shallow-hearted fellows deserve to grow . But , instead of being ashamed of his emptiness , he was quite proud of it , as a good many fine gentlemen are , and began flirting and flipping up and down , and singing - `` My wife shall dance , and I shall sing , So merrily pass the day ; For I hold it for quite the wisest thing , To drive dull care away . '' And he danced up and down for three days and three nights , till he grew so tired , that he tumbled into the water , and floated down .
But what became XXXXX him Tom never knew , and he himself never minded ; for Tom heard him singing to the last , as he floated down - `` To drive dull care away-ay-ay ! ''
To as for in into of on over so till