THE WATER BABIES
principle, which need not be described, as it has not yet been discovered.
Tom walked towards this great building, wondering what it was, and having a strange fancy that he might find Mr. Grimes inside, till he saw running toward him, and shouting "Stop!" three or four people who, when they came nearer, were nothing else than policemen's truncheons, running along without legs or arms.
Tom was not astonished. He was long past that. Besides, he had seen the naviculæ in the water move nobody knows how, a hundred times, without arms, or legs, or anything to stand in their stead. Neither was he frightened; for he had been doing no harm.
So he stopped, and when the foremost truncheon came up and asked his business, he showed Mother Carey's pass; and the truncheon looked at it in the oddest fashion; for he had one eye in the middle of his upper end, so that when he looked at anything, being quite stiff, he had to slope himself, and poke himself, till it was a wonder why he did not tumble over; but, being quite full of the spirit of justice (as all policemen, and their truncheons ought to be), he was always in a position of stable equilibrium, whichever way he put himself.
"All right—pass on," said he at last. And then he added: "I had better go with you, young man." And Tom had no objection, for such company was both respectable and safe; so the truncheon coiled its thong neatly round its handle, to prevent tripping itself up—-
299
