vowed that the other was
the best company he ever met in his life. What an advantage it is to be
men of the world!

From all which you may guess that the professor was not the least of
little Ellie's opinion. So he gave her a succinct compendium of his
famous paper at the British Association, in a form suited for the
youthful mind. But, as we have gone over his arguments against
water-babies once already, which is once too often, we will not repeat
them here.

Now little Ellie was, I suppose, a stupid little girl; for, instead of
being convinced by Professor Ptthmllnsprts' arguments, she only asked
the same question over again.

"But why are there not water-babies?"

I trust and hope that it was because the professor trod at that moment
on the edge of a very sharp mussel, and hurt one of his corns sadly,
that he answered quite sharply, forgetting that he was a scientific man,
and therefore ought to have known that he couldn't know; and that he was
a logician, and therefore ought to have known that he could not prove a
universal negative--I say, I trust and hope it was because the mussel
hurt his corn, that the professor answered quite sharply:

"Because there ain't."

Which was not even good English, my dear little boy; for, as you must
know from Aunt Agitate's Arguments, the professor ought to have said, if
he was so angry as to say anything of the kind--Because there are not:
or are none: or are none of them; or (if he had been reading Aunt
Agitate too) because they do not exist.

And he groped with his net under the weeds so violently, that, as it
befell, he caught poor little Tom.

He felt the net very heavy; and lifted it out quickly, with Tom all
entangled in the meshes.

"Dear me!" he cried. "What a large pink Holothurian; with hands, too! It
must be connected with Synapta."

And he took him out.

"It has actually eyes!" he cried. "Why, it must be a Cephalopod! This is
most extraordinary!"

"No, I ain't!" cried Tom, as loud as he could; for he did not like to be
called bad names.

"It is a water-baby!" cried Ellie; and of course it was.

"Water-fiddlesticks, my dear!" said the professor; and he turned away
sharply.

There was no denying it. It was a water-baby: and he had said a moment
ago that there were none. What was he to do?

He would have liked, of course, to have taken Tom home in a bucket. He
would not have put him in spirits. Of course not. He would have kept him
alive, and petted