Ah , you lucky little dog ! '' said the poor old giant . `` But why do you run after all these poor people ? '' said Tom , who liked the giant very much . `` My dear , it 's they that have been running after me , father and son , for hundreds and hundreds of years , throwing stones at me till they have knocked off my spectacles fifty times , and calling me a malignant and a turbaned Turk , who beat a Venetian and traduced the State -- goodness only knows what they mean , for I never read poetry - - and hunting me round and round -- though catch me they ca n't , for every time I go over the same ground , I go the faster , and grow the bigger . While all I want is to be friends with them , and to tell them something to their advantage , like Mr. Joseph Ady : only somehow they are so strangely afraid of hearing it . But , I suppose I am not a man of the world , and have no tact . '' `` But why do n't you turn round and tell them so ? '' `` Because I ca n't . You see , I am one of the sons of Epimetheus , and must go backwards , if I am to go at all . '' `` But why do n't you stop , and let them come up to you ? '' `` Why , my dear , only think . If I did , all the butterflies and cockyolybirds would fly past me , and then I should catch no more new species , and should grow rusty and mouldy , and die . And I do n't intend to do that , my dear ; for I have a destiny before me , they say : though what it is I do n't know , and do n't care . '' `` Do n't care ? '' said Tom . `` No . Do the duty which lies nearest you , and catch the first beetle you come across , is my motto ; and I have thriven by it for some hundred years . Now I must go on . Dear me , while I have been talking to you , at least nine new species have escaped me . ''
And XXXXX went the giant , behind before , like a bull in a china-shop , till he ran into the steeple of the great idol temple -LRB- for they are all idolaters in those parts , of course , else they would never be afraid of giants -RRB- , and knocked the upper half clean off , hurting himself horribly about the small of the back .
before by for if like of on past till to