THE WATER BABIES
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?"
"Oh! she is a very plain, stupid creature, and that's the truth, and thinks about nothing but eggs. If she chooses to come, why, she may, and if not, why, I go without her—and here I go."
And as he spoke he turned quite pale and then quite white.
"Why, you're ill!" said Tom. But he did not answer.
You're dead," said Tom, looking at him as he stood on his knee as white as a ghost.
"No, I ain't!" answered a little squeaking voice over his head. This is me up here, in my ball dress, and that's my skin. Ha, ha! you could not do such a trick as that!"
And no more Tom could, nor Houdin, nor Robin, nor Frikell, nor all the conjurers in the world. For the little rogue had jumped clean out of his own skin, and left it standing on Tom's knee—eyes, wings, legs, tail, exactly as if it had been alive.
"Ha, ha!" he said, and he jerked and skipped up and down, never stopping an instant, just as if he had St. Vitus' dance. "Ain't I a pretty fellow now?"
And so he was; for his body was white, and his tail orange, and his eyes all the colours of a peacock's tail.
91
