Andy ran after it, wild with excitement. Now it slipped through his fingers just as he pounced upon it, and tumbled headlong into a bunch of thistles. Now it floated in the air quite above his head, while he reached up and jumped, and ran on tiptoe after it, until he hit his foot against a stone, which he was looking too high to see, and nearly broke his shin in falling. Then it skipped along close upon the ground, stopping when he stopped, and seeming to invite him to come and catch it, but darting away again the moment he thought he had it fairly in his hands. At last it squatted down against a stump, in a large, hilly field full of stumps and stones and ploughed ground, where Andy had never been before. Almost crying, he was so vexed and tired and far from home, he came up to the stump. Bunny did not stir, but only winked a little, and pricked up its pretty ears. "Now I'll have you!" And Andy sprang upon it, catching it with both hands. "I've got you! I've got you! I've got you!" he cried, in high glee. "Now, my pretty, naughty--ho!" said Andy, with the greatest amazement. For lo! on opening his hands, he found that the thing he had given such a chase, and caught at last, was nothing but a little ball of thistle-down, which had been blown before him by the wind! There he held it, and rubbed his eyes as he looked at it, and wondered; then he began to remember what Mother Quirk had said to him; and he would have given a good deal just then to have been back again at the well, as he was before the angry old woman boxed his ear. He was afraid she had bewitched him. He looked at the thistle-down again and again, and turned it over, and picked it to pieces a little, then brushed it off from his hand, when, O wonderful! it immediately changed to a dove, and flew into the sky! But he found that he had pulled out some of its feathers, and still held one beautiful long white quill in his fingers. Now he was sorry he had not kept it. And he would have got up and run after it again; but just then, happening to look where he had thrown the feathers down by the stump, he saw one of the strangest sights in the world. A little bit of a fellow, not so large as the end of his thumb, opened a little bit of a door in the side of the stump, walked out, and looked around as if he had heard a noise about his house, and wished to see what had happened. "Tom Thumb!" exclaimed Andy, in the greatest surprise and delight. He had lately read the history of that famous little dwarf; and he had often thought he would give all his playthings just to make his acquaintance. "Tom Thumb! Tom Thumb! how do you do?" he said. But as Tom walked about, and paid no attention to him, he thought perhaps he had not addressed him respectfully enough. So he said,--"I beg your pardon, Mr. Thumb! I hope you are pretty well, Mr. Thumb." At that the little gentleman took off his hat, and made the politest little bow imaginable.