So Tom went home with Ellie on Sundays, and sometimes on week-days, too; and he is now a great man of science, and can plan railroads, and steam engines, and electric telegraphs, and rifled guns, and so forth; and knows everything about everything, except why a hen’s egg doesn’t turn into a crocodile, and two or three other little things.  And all this from what he learnt when he was a water baby, underneath the sea.

“And of course Tom married Ellie?”

My dear child, what a silly notion!  Don’t you know that no one ever marries in a fairy tale, under the rank of a prince or a princess?

“And Tom’s dog?”

Oh, you may see him any clear night in July; for the old dog star was so worn out by the last three hot summers that there have been no dog days since; so that they had to take him down and put Tom’s dog up in his place.  Therefore, as new brooms sweep clean, we may hope for some warm weather this year.  And that is the end of my story.

MORAL

And now, my dear little man, what should we learn from this parable?

We should learn thirty-seven or thirty-nine things, I am not exactly sure which; but one thing, at least, we may learn, and that is this—­ when we see efts in the pond, never to throw stones at them, or catch them with crooked pins.  For these efts are nothing else but the water babies who are stupid and dirty, and will not learn their lessons and keep themselves clean; and therefore, their skulls grow flat, their jaws grow out, and their brains grow small, and their tails grow long, and their skins grow dirty and spotted, and they never get into the clear rivers, much less into the great wide sea, but hang about in dirty ponds, and live in the mud, and eat worms, as they deserve to do.

But that is no reason why you should ill-use them; but only why you should pity them, and be kind to them, and hope that some day they will wake up, and be ashamed of their nasty, dirty, lazy, stupid life, and try to amend, and become something better once more.  For, perhaps, if they do so, then after 379,423 years, nine months, thirteen days, two hours, and twenty-one minutes, if they work very hard and wash very hard all that time, their brains may grow bigger, and their jaws grow smaller, and their tails wither off, and they will turn into water babies again, and perhaps after that into land babies; and after that perhaps into grown men.

Meanwhile, do you learn your lessons, and thank God that you have plenty of cold water to wash in; and wash in it too, like a true Englishman.  And then, if my story is not true, something better is; and if I am not quite right, still you will be, as long as you stick to hard work and cold water.

But remember always, as I told you at first, that this is all a fairy tale, and only fun and pretence; and, therefore, you are not to believe a word of it, even if it is true.