As the Imp puts the caddis back into the water he sometimes sees a sudden stirring of the mud, as if someone had poked a pencil in and pulled it quickly out again, bringing a puff of fine sediment up into the water. In the place from which the puff came is a water-shrimp, who is far harder to catch than the caddis, for he is one of the nimblest of the little dodging water-folk. It takes the Imp ten minutes and a lot of splashing before, if he is lucky, he can catch one in the hollow of his hand. Then it lies in a little puddle of water in his palm, whirling itself about, and thrashing into ripples the waters of its prison. It is very like a seaside shrimp, only smaller. It is pale, muddy brown, and looks as if it had been made of tiny napkin rings slipped over each other like a little curly telescope, with active legs and busy feelers. Sometimes as the children paddle up the stream they see a brown cloud in the water, darting up and up before them in swift swimming jerks. "Minnows!" they shout, and "Minnows, Ogre, look!" and watch the shoal of little fishes flashing through the water just out of reach of them. From moment to moment one of them turns half over in the water, with a flash of silver as he turns. And sometimes, when the Imp and the Elf are not paddling, and we are all three of us lying on the bank, we see the shoal swim slowly past us, and watch the minnows fling themselves right out of the water after the tiny flies that play over the surface of the stream. Then it is as if a clever juggler were hidden under the water and were throwing little curved knives up from the bottom of the stream to twist and sparkle in the air, and then fall plosh, plosh, into widening circles of ripples. Minnow after minnow leaps out of the water, turns and falls, and the ripples of the different splashes cross one another and cut the water into a thousand thousand glittering points of light. [Illustration]