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
(to go on) 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