THE WATER BABIES
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 cocktailed duns and spinners, yellow, and brown, and claret, and grey, 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 grey 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—
