therefore when the children saw her, they naturally all caught hold
of her, and pulled her till she sat down on a stone, and climbed
into her lap, and clung round her neck, and caught hold of her
hands; and then they all put their thumbs into their mouths, and
began cuddling and purring like so many kittens, as they ought to
have done. While those who could get nowhere else sat down on the
sand, and cuddled her feet--for no one, you know, wear shoes in the
water, except horrid old bathing-women, who are afraid of the
water-babies pinching their horny toes. And Tom stood staring at
them; for he could not understand what it was all about.

"And who are you, you little darling?" she said.

"Oh, that is the new baby!" they all cried, pulling their thumbs
out of their mouths; "and he never had any mother," and they all
put their thumbs back again, for they did not wish to lose any
time.

"Then I will be his mother, and he shall have the very best place;
so get out, all of you, this moment."

And she took up two great armfuls of babies--nine hundred under one
arm, and thirteen hundred under the other--and threw them away,
right and left, into the water. But they minded it no more than
the naughty boys in Struwelpeter minded when St. Nicholas dipped
them in his inkstand; and did not even take their thumbs out of
their mouths, but came paddling and wriggling back to her like so
many tadpoles, till you could see nothing of her from head to foot
for the swarm of little babies.