And Tom?

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, at least until the coming of the
Cocqcigrues, when man shall be the measure of all things.

"But there are no such things as water-babies."

How do you know that? Have you been there to see? And if you had
been there to see, and had seen none, that would not prove that
there were none. If Mr. Garth does not find a fox in Eversley
Wood--as folks sometimes fear he never will--that does not prove
that there are no such things as foxes. And as is Eversley Wood to
all the woods in England, so are the waters we know to all the