He was a very worthy, kind, good-natured little old gentleman; and very fond of children, and very good to all the world as long as it was good to him. Only one fault he had, which cock-robins have likewise, as you may see if you look out of the nursery window--that when any one else found a curious worm, he would hop round them, and peck them, and bristle up his feathers, just as a cock-robin would; and declare that he found the worm first; and that it was his worm; and, if not, that then it was not a worm at all. So Ellie and he were walking on the rocks, and he was showing her about one in ten thousand of all the beautiful and curious things which are to be seen there. But little Ellie was not satisfied with them at all. She liked much better to play with live children, or even with dolls, which she could pretend were alive; and at last she said honestly, "I don't care about all these things, because they can't play with me, or talk with me. If there were little children now in the water, as there used to be, and I could see them, I should like that." "Children in the water, you strange little duck?" said the professor. "Yes," said Ellie. "I know there used to be children in the water, and mermaids too, and mermen. I saw them all in a picture at home, of a beautiful lady sailing in a car drawn by dolphins, and babies flying round her, and one sitting in her lap; and the mermaids swimming and playing, and the mermen trumpeting on conch-shells; and it is called 'The Triumph of Galatea;' [Footnote: This picture which little Ellie loved so was a copy of a famous painting by the great Raphael.] and there is a burning mountain in the picture behind. It hangs on the great staircase, and I have looked at it ever since I was a baby, and dreamt about it a hundred times; and it is so beautiful that it must be true." The professor, however, was not the least of little Ellie's opinion. "But why are there not water babies?" asked Ellie. 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, "Because there ain't." Which was not even good English, my dear little boy; for, as you must know, 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. And he groped with his net under the weeds so violently, that he caught poor little Tom. He felt the net very heavy; lifted it out quickly, with Tom all entangled in the meshes.