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Updated: July 27, 2025
Every creature in the stream seemed to be hurrying down to the sea, and Tom, being the only water-baby among all the squirming eels and the scores of different things, big and little, he had many strange adventures before he came to the sea.
The moonlight lit up the man's face, and Tom recognised his old master, Grimes. Suppose he should turn into a water-baby! But he lay quite still at the bottom of the pool, and never went poaching salmon any more.
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.
And there Tom was very near being kneaded up in the world-pap, and turned into a fossil water-baby; which would have astonished the Geological Society of New Zealand some hundreds of thousands of years hence.
And yet I was able to go in swimming this afternoon, and forget everything and frolic around as happily as any water-baby! MY DEAR CORYDON: I came off to write my poem, but I have been thinking about you, and I must write a long letter. It is one of the kind that you do not like. In the first place, you complain of the contradictions in my letters. I am sorry.
And the dog opened at once; and went away at the back of the cottage, over the road, and over the meadow, and through a bit of alder copse; and there, upon an alder stump, they saw Tom's clothes lying. And then they knew as much about it all as there was any need to know. And Tom? Ah, now comes the most wonderful part of this wonderful story. In fact, the fairies had turned him into a water-baby.
And no more it was, because he was a water-baby, and had the original sow by the right ear; which you will never have, unless you be a baby, whether of the water, the land, or the air, matters not, provided you can only keep on continually being a baby.
Ah, my dear little man! that does not follow at all, as you will see before the end of the story. "But a water-baby is contrary to nature." Well, but, my dear little man, you must learn to talk about such things, when you grow older, in a very different way from that.
And at last, with his fretting and crying, he grew quite lean and thin. But one day among the rocks he found a playfellow. It was not a water-baby, alas! but it was a lobster; and a very distinguished lobster he was; for he had live barnacles on his claws, which is a great mark of distinction in lobsterdom, and no more to be bought for money than a good conscience or the Victoria Cross.
The reason of his falling into such a delightful sleep is very simple. It was merely that the fairies took him. In fact, they turned him into a water-baby. Meanwhile, of course, the chase after Tom had come to an end, although Sir John and his keepers made a second search the next day, for he felt sorry for the little sweep, and was afraid he might have fallen over some of the crags.
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