And, after a week, one moonlight night, the fairies came flying in
at the window and brought her such a pretty pair of wings that she
could not help putting them on; and she flew with them out of the
window, and over the land, and over the sea, and up through the
clouds, and nobody heard or saw anything of her for a very long
while.

And this is why they say that no one has ever yet seen a water-
baby. For my part, I believe that the naturalists get dozens of
them when they are out dredging; but they say nothing about them,
and throw them overboard again, for fear of spoiling their
theories. But, you see the professor was found out, as every one
is in due time. A very terrible old fairy found the professor out;
she felt his bumps, and cast his nativity, and took the lunars of
him carefully inside and out; and so she knew what he would do as
well as if she had seen it in a print book, as they say in the dear
old west country; and he did it; and so he was found out
beforehand, as everybody always is; and the old fairy will find out
the naturalists some day, and put them in the Times, and then on
whose side will the laugh be?

So the old fairy took him in hand very severely there and then.
But she says she is always most severe with the best people,
because there is most chance of curing them, and therefore they are
the patients who pay her best; for she has to work on the same
salary as the Emperor of China's physicians (it is a pity that all
do not), no cure, no pay.

So she took the poor professor in hand: and because he was not
content with things as they are, she filled his head with things as