with a house-door before: so what must he do, the meddlesome
little fellow, but pull it open, to see what the poor lady was
doing inside. What a shame! How should you like to have any one
breaking your bedroom-door in, to see how you looked when you where
in bed? So Tom broke to pieces the door, which was the prettiest
little grating of silk, stuck all over with shining bits of
crystal; and when he looked in, the caddis poked out her head, and
it had turned into just the shape of a bird's. But when Tom spoke
to her she could not answer; for her mouth and face were tight tied
up in a new night-cap of neat pink skin. However, if she didn't
answer, all the other caddises did; for they held up their hands
and shrieked like the cats in Struwelpeter: "Oh, you nasty horrid
boy; there you are at it again! And she had just laid herself up
for a fortnight's sleep, and then she would have come out with such
beautiful wings, and flown about, and laid such lots of eggs: and
now you have broken her door, and she can't mend it because her
mouth is tied up for a fortnight, and she will die. Who sent you
here to worry us out of our lives?"

So Tom swam away. He was very much ashamed of himself, and felt
all the naughtier; as little boys do when they have done wrong and
won't say so.

Then he came to a pool full of little trout, and began tormenting
them, and trying to catch them: but they slipped through his
fingers, and jumped clean out of water in their fright. But as Tom
chased them, he came close to a great dark hover under an alder
root, and out floushed a huge old brown trout ten times as big as
he was, and ran right against him, and knocked all the breath out
of his body; and I don't know which was the more frightened of the