Ah, now comes the most wonderful part of this wonderful story.  Tom, when he woke, for of course he woke—­children always wake after they have slept exactly as long as is good for them—­found himself swimming about in the stream, being about four inches, or—­that I may be accurate—­ 3.87902 inches long, and having round the parotid region of his fauces a set of external gills (I hope you understand all the big words) just like those of a sucking eft, which he mistook for a lace frill, till he pulled at them, found he hurt himself, and made up his mind that they were part of himself, and best left alone.  In fact, the fairies had turned him into a water baby.

A water baby?  You never heard of a water baby?  Perhaps not.  That is the very reason why this story was written.  There are a great many things in the world which you never heard of; and a great many more which nobody ever heard of; and a great many things, too, which nobody will ever hear of.

No water babies, indeed?  Why, wise men of old said that everything on earth had its double in the water; and you may see that that is, if not quite true, still quite as true as most other theories which you are likely to hear for many a day.  There are land babies—­then why not water babies?  Are there not water rats, water flies, water crickets, water crabs, water tortoises, water scorpions, water tigers and so on without end?

Am I in earnest?  Oh dear no!  Don’t you know that this is a fairy tale, and all fun and pretense; and that you are not to believe one word of it, even if it is true?

But at all events, so it happened to Tom.  And, therefore, the keeper and the groom, and Sir John made a great mistake, and were very unhappy (Sir John, at least) without any reason, when they found a black thing in the water, and said it was Tom’s body and that he had been drowned.  They were utterly mistaken.  Tom was quite alive; and cleaner, and merrier, than he had ever been.  The fairies had washed him, you see, in the swift river, so thoroughly, that not only his dirt, but his whole husk and shell had been washed quite off him, and the pretty little real Tom was washed out of the inside of it, and swam away, as a caddis [Footnote:  The caddis worm, while it lives in the water, builds for itself a case of stones or grass or shells, all bound together with silk When the time for its transformation is near, the worm seals up with silk both ends of its case, and remains withdrawn until it is ready to emerge as a caddis fly.] does when its case of stones and silk is bored through, and away it goes on its back, paddling to the shore, there to split its skin, and fly away as a caperer, on four fawn-coloured wings, with long legs and horns.  They are foolish fellows, the caperers, and fly into the candle at night, if you leave the door open.  We will hope Tom will be wiser, now he has got safe out of his sooty old shell.