And about this time there happened to Tom a very strange and important adventure -- so important , indeed , that he was very near never finding the water-babies at all ; and I am sure you would have been sorry for that . I hope that you have not forgotten the little white lady all this while . At least , here she comes , looking like a clean white good little darling , as she always was , and always will be . For it befell in the pleasant short December days , when the wind always blows from the south-west , till Old Father Christmas comes and spreads the great white table-cloth , ready for little boys and girls to give the birds their Christmas dinner of crumbs -- it befell -LRB- to go on -RRB- in the pleasant December days , that Sir John was so busy hunting that nobody at home could get a word out of him . Four days a week he hunted , and very good sport he had ; and the other two he went to the bench and the board of guardians , and very good justice he did ; and , when he got home in time , he dined at five ; for he hated this absurd new fashion of dining at eight in the hunting season , which forces a man to make interest with the footman for cold beef and beer as soon as he comes in , and so spoil his appetite , and then sleep in an arm-chair in his bedroom , all stiff and tired , for two or three hours before he can get his dinner like a gentleman . And do you be like Sir John , my dear little man , when you are your own master ; and , if you want either to read hard or ride hard , stick to the good old Cambridge hours of breakfast at eight and dinner at five ; by which you may get two days ' work out of one . But , of course , if you find a fox at three in the afternoon and run him till dark , and leave off twenty miles from home , why you must wait for your dinner till you can get it , as better men than you have done . Only see that , if you go hungry , your horse does not ; but give him his warm gruel and beer , and take him gently home , remembering that good horses do n't grow on the hedge like blackberries . It befell -LRB- to go on a second time -RRB- that Sir John , hunting all day , and dining at five , fell asleep every evening , and snored so terribly that all the windows in Harthover shook , and the soot fell down the chimneys . Whereon My Lady , being no more able to get conversation out of him than a song out of a dead nightingale , determined to go off and leave him , and the doctor , and Captain Swinger the agent , to snore in concert every evening to their hearts ' content . So she started for the seaside with all the children , in order to put herself and them into condition by mild applications of iodine . She might as well have stayed at home and used Parry 's liquid horse-blister , for there was plenty of it in the stables ; and then she would have saved her money , and saved the chance , also , of making all the children ill instead of well -LRB- as hundreds are made -RRB- , by taking them to some nasty smelling undrained lodging , and then wondering how they caught scarlatina and diphtheria : but people wo n't be wise enough to understand that till they are dead of bad smells , and then it will be too late ; besides you see , Sir John did certainly snore very loud . But where she went to nobody must know , for fear young ladies should begin to fancy that there are water-babies there ! and so hunt and howk after them -LRB- besides raising the price of lodgings -RRB- , and keep them in aquariums , as the ladies at Pompeii -LRB- as you may see by the paintings -RRB- used to keep Cupids in cages . But nobody ever heard that they starved the Cupids , or let them die of dirt and neglect , as English young ladies do by the poor sea-beasts . So nobody must know where My Lady went . Letting water-babies die is as bad as taking singing birds ' eggs ; for , though there are thousands , ay , millions , of both of them in the world , yet there is not one too many . Now it befell that , on the very shore , and over the very rocks , where Tom was sitting with his friend the lobster , there walked one day the little white lady , Ellie herself , and with her a very wise man indeed -- Professor Ptthmllnsprts . His mother was a Dutchwoman , and therefore he was born at Curacao -LRB- of course you have learnt your geography , and therefore know why -RRB- ; and his father a Pole , and therefore he was brought up at Petropaulowski -LRB- of course you have learnt your modern politics , and therefore know why -RRB- : but for all that he was as thorough an Englishman as ever coveted his neighbour 's goods . And his name , as I said , was Professor Ptthmllnsprts , which is a very ancient and noble Polish name .
He was , XXXXX I said , a very great naturalist , and chief professor of Necrobioneopalaeonthydrochthonanthropopithekology in the new university which the king of the Cannibal Islands had founded ; and , being a member of the Acclimatisation Society , he had come here to collect all the nasty things which he could find on the coast of England , and turn them loose round the Cannibal Islands , because they had not nasty things enough there to eat what they left .
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