And the trout and he made it up (for trout very soon forget if they have been frightened and hurt). So Tom used to play with them at hare and hounds, and great fun they had; and he used to try to leap out of the water, head over heels, as they did before a shower came on; but somehow he never could manage it. He liked most, though, to see them rising at the flies, as they sailed round and round under the shadow of the great oak, where the beetles fell flop into the water, and the green caterpillars let themselves down from the boughs by silk ropes for no reason at all; and then changed their foolish minds for no reason at all either; and hauled themselves up again into the tree, rolling up the rope in a ball between their paws; which is a very clever rope-dancer’s trick, and neither Blondin nor Leotard could do it: but why they should take so much trouble about it no one can tell; for they cannot get their living, as Blondin and Leotard do, by trying to break their necks on a string.

And very often Tom caught them just as they touched the water; and caught the alder-flies, and the caperers, and the cock-tailed duns and spinners, yellow, and brown, and claret, and gray, and gave them to his friends the trout. Perhaps he was not quite kind to the flies; but one must do a good turn to one’s friends when one can.

And at last he gave up catching even the flies; for he made acquaintance with one by accident and found him a very merry little fellow. And this was the way it happened; and it is all quite true.

He was basking at the top of the water one hot day in July, catching duns and feeding the trout, when he saw a new sort, a dark gray little fellow with a brown head. He was a very little fellow indeed: but he made the most of himself, as people ought to do. He cocked up his head, and he cocked up his wings, and he cocked up his tail, and he cocked up the two whisks at his tail-end, and, in short, he looked the cockiest little man of all little men. And so he proved to be; for instead of getting away, he hopped upon Tom’s finger, and sat there as bold as nine tailors; and he cried out in the tiniest, shrillest, squeakiest little voice you ever heard,

“Much obliged to you, indeed; but I don’t want it yet.”

“Want what?” said Tom, quite taken aback by his impudence.

“Your leg, which you are kind enough to hold out for me to sit on. I must just go and see after my wife for a few minutes. Dear me! what a troublesome business a family is!” (though the idle little rogue did nothing at all, but left his poor wife to lay all the eggs by herself). “When I come back, I shall be glad of it, if you’ll be so good as to keep it sticking out just so;” and off he flew.

Tom thought him a very cool sort of personage; and still more so, when, in five minutes he came back, and said - “Ah, you were tired waiting? Well, your other leg will do as well.”

And he popped himself down on Tom’s knee, and began chatting away in his squeaking voice.

“So you live under the water? It’s a low place. I lived there for some time; and was very shabby and dirty. But I didn’t choose that that should last. So I turned respectable, and came up to the top, and put on this gray suit. It’s a very business-like suit, you think, don’t you?”

“Very neat and quiet indeed,” said Tom.

“Yes, one must be quiet and neat and respectable, and all that sort of thing for a little, when one becomes a family man. But I’m tired of it, that’s the truth. I’ve done quite enough business, I consider, in the last week, to last me my life. So I shall put on a ball dress, and go out and be a smart man, and see the gay world, and have a dance or two. Why shouldn’t one be jolly if one can?”

“And what will become of your wife?”