CHAPTER VIII AND LAST
Now, as soon as Tom had left Peacepool, he came to the white lap of the great sea mother, ten thousand fathoms deep; where she makes world-pap all day long, for the steam giants to knead, and the fire giants to bake, till it has risen and hardened into mountain-loaves and island- cakes.
And there Tom was very near being kneaded up in the world-pap, and turned into a fossil water baby; which would have astonished the Geological Society of New Zealand some hundreds of thousands of years hence.
For as he walked along in the silence of the sea twilight, on the soft white ocean floor, he was aware of a hissing, and a roaring, and a thumping, and a pumping, as of all the steam engines in the world at once. And when he came near, the water grew boiling hot; not that that hurt him in the least; but it also grew as foul as gruel; and every moment he stumbled over dead shells, and fish, and sharks, and seals, and whales, which had been killed by the hot water.
And at last he came to the great sea serpent himself, lying dead at the bottom; and as he was too thick to scramble over, Tom had to walk round him three quarters of a mile and more, which put him out of his path sadly; and when he had got round, he came to the place called Stop. And there he stopped, and just in time.
For he was on the edge of a vast hole in the bottom of the sea, up which was rushing and roaring clear steam enough to work all the engines in the world at once; so clear, indeed, that it was quite light at moments, and Tom could see almost up to the top of the water above, and down below into the pit for nobody knows how far.
But as soon as he bent his head over the edge, he got such a rap on the nose from pebbles, that he jumped back again; for the steam, as it rushed up, rasped away the sides of the hole, and hurled it up into the sea in a shower of mud and gravel and ashes; and then it spread all around, and sank again, and covered in the dead fish so fast, that before Tom had stood there five minutes he was buried in silt up to his ankles, and began to be afraid that he should have been buried alive.
And perhaps he would have been, but that while he was thinking, the whole piece of ground on which he stood was torn up and blown upwards, and away flew Tom a mile up through the sea, wondering what was coming next.
At last he stopped—thump! and found himself tight in the legs of the most wonderful bogy which he had ever seen.
It had I don't know how many wings, as big as the sails of a windmill, and spread out in a ring like them; and with them it hovered over the steam which rushed up, as a ball hovers over the top of a fountain. And for every wing before it had a leg below, with a claw like a comb at the tip, and a nostril at the root; and in the middle it had no stomach and one eye; and as for its mouth, that was all on one side, as the madreporiform tubercle in a starfish is. Well, it was a very strange beast; but no stranger than some dozens which you may see.
"What do you want here," it cried quite peevishly, "getting in my way?" and it tried to drop Tom; but he held on tight to its claws, thinking himself safer where he was.
So Tom told him who he was, and what his errand was. And the thing winked its one eye, and sneered:
"I am too old to be taken in in that way. You are come after gold—I know you are."
"Gold! What is gold!" And really Tom did not know; but the suspicious old bogy would not believe him.
But after a while Tom began to understand a little. For, as the vapours came up out of the hole, the bogy smelt them with his nostrils, and combed them and sorted them with his combs; and then, when they steamed up through them against his wings, they were changed into showers and streams of metal. From one wing fell gold dust, and from another silver, and from another copper, and from another tin, and from another lead, and so on, and sank into the soft mud, into veins and cracks, and hardened there. Whereby it comes to pass that the rocks are full of metal.
But, all of a sudden, somebody shut off the steam below, and the hole was left empty in an instant; and then down rushed the water into the hole, in such a whirlpool that the bogy spun round and round as fast as a teetotum. But that was all in his day's work, like a fair fall with the hounds; so all he did was to say to Tom:
"Now is your time, youngster, to get down, if you are in earnest, which
I don't believe."
"You'll soon see," said Tom; and away he went, as bold as Baron
Munchausen, and shot down the rushing cataract like a salmon at
Ballisodare.
And when he got to the bottom, he swam till he was washed on shore safe upon the Other-end-of-Nowhere; and he found it, to his surprise, as most other people do, much more like This-end-of-Somewhere than he had been in the habit of expecting.
There Tom saw ploughs drawing horses, nails driving hammers, birds' nests taking boys, books making authors, bulls keeping china shops, monkeys shaving cats, dead dogs drilling live lions, and, in short, every one set to do something which he had not learnt, because in what he had learnt, or pretended to learn, he had failed.
On the borders of that island he found Gotham, where the wise men live; the same who dragged the pond because the moon had fallen into it, and planted a hedge round the cuckoo, to keep spring all the year. And he found them bricking up the town gate, because it was so wide that little folks could not get through.
So he went on, for it was no business of his; only he could not help saying that in his country if the kitten could not get in at the same hole as the cat, she might stay outside and mew.
Then Tom came to a very famous island, which was called, in the days of the great traveler Captain Gulliver, the Isle of Laputa. [Footnote: Swift describes, in Gulliver's Travels, a flying island, called Laputa. The inhabitants were quacks, so absorbed in their false science that they had eyes and ears for nothing else, and were therefore followed about by servants who "flapped" them with a blown-up bladder, when they were expected to hear or to see or to say anything.] But Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid has named it over again, the Isle of Tomtoddies, all heads and no bodies.
And when Tom came near it, he heard such a grumbling and grunting and growling and wailing and weeping and whining that he thought people must be ringing little pigs, or cropping puppies' ears, or drowning kittens; but when he came nearer still, he began to hear words among the noise; which was the Tomtoddies' song which they sing morning and evening, and all night too, to their great idol Examination—
"I CAN'T LEARN MY LESSON; THE EXAMINER'S COMING!"
And that was the only song which they knew.
And when Tom got on shore the first thing he saw was a great pillar, on one side of which was inscribed, "Playthings not allowed here;" at which he was so shocked that he would not stay to see what was written on the other side. Then he looked round for the people of the island; but instead of men, women, and children, he found nothing but turnips and radishes, beets and mangold wurzel, without a single green leaf among them, and half of them burst and decayed, with toadstools growing out of them. Those which were left began crying to Tom, in half a dozen different languages at once, and all of them badly spoken, "I can't learn my lesson; do come and help me!"
"And what good on earth would it do you if I did help you?" quoth Tom.
Well, they didn't know that; all they knew was the examiner was coming.
Then Tom stumbled on the hugest and softest nimblecomequick turnip you ever saw filling a hole in a crop of swedes, and it cried to him, "Can you tell me anything at all about anything you like?"
"About what?" says Tom.
"About anything you like; for as fast as I learn things I forget them again. So my mamma says that my intellect is not adapted for methodic science, and says that I must go in for general information."
Tom told him that he did not know general information, nor any officers in the army; only he had a friend once that went for a drummer; but he could tell him a great many strange things which he had seen in his travels.
So he told him prettily enough, while the poor turnip listened very carefully; and the more he listened, the more he forgot, and the more water ran out of him.
Tom thought he was crying; but it was only his poor brains running away, from being worked so hard; and as Tom talked, the unhappy turnip streamed down all over with juice, and split and shrank till nothing was left of him but rind and water; whereat Tom ran away in a fright, for he thought he might be taken up for killing the turnip.
But, on the contrary, the turnip's parents were highly delighted, and considered him a saint and a martyr, and put up a long inscription over his tomb about his wonderful talents, early development, and unparalleled precocity. Were they not a foolish couple? But there was still a more foolish couple next to them, who were beating a wretched little radish, no bigger than my thumb, for sullenness and obstinacy and wilful stupidity, and never knew that the reason why it couldn't learn or hardly even speak was, that there was a great worm inside it eating out all its brains. But even they are no foolisher than some hundred score of papas and mammas, who fetch the rod when they ought to fetch a new toy, and send to the dark cupboard instead of to the doctor.
Tom was so puzzled and frightened with all he saw, that he was longing to ask the meaning of it; and at last he stumbled over a respectable old stick lying half covered with earth. But a very stout and worthy stick it was, for it belonged to good Roger Ascham [Footnote: Roger Ascham was a famous English scholar and writer of the sixteenth century. He was teacher of languages to Princess, afterward Queen, Elizabeth, and later, was Latin secretary to both Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth.] in old time.
"You see," said the stick, "they were as pretty little children once as you could wish to see, and might have been so still if they had been only left to grow up like human beings, and then handed over to me; but their foolish fathers and mothers, instead of letting them pick flowers, and make dirt-pies, and get birds' nests, and dance round the gooseberry bush, as little children should, kept them always at lessons, working, working, working, learning week-day lessons all week-days, and Sunday lessons all Sunday, and weekly examinations every Saturday, and monthly examinations every month, and yearly examinations every year, everything seven times over, as if once was not enough, and enough as good as a feast—till their brains grew big, and their bodies grew small, and they were all changed into turnips, with little but water inside; and still their foolish parents actually pick the leaves off them as fast as they grow, lest they should have anything green about them."
"Ah!" said Tom, "if Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby knew of it she would send them a lot of tops, and balls, and marbles, and nine-pins, and make them all as jolly as sand-boys."
"It would be no use," said the stick. "They can't play now, if they tried. Don't you see how their legs have turned to roots and grown into the ground, by never taking any exercise, but sapping and moping always in the same place.
"But here comes the Examiner-of-all-Examiners. So you had better get away, I warn you, or he will examine you and your dog into the bargain, and set him to examine all the other dogs, and you to examine all the other water babies. There is no escaping out of his hands, for his nose is nine thousand miles long, and can go down chimneys, and through keyholes, upstairs, downstairs, in my lady's chamber, examining all little boys, and the little boys' tutors likewise. But when he is thrashed—so Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid has promised me—I shall have the thrashing of him; and if I don't lay it on with a will it's a pity."
Tom went off, but rather slowly and surlily; for he was somewhat minded to face this same Examiner-of-all-Examiners, who came striding among the poor turnips, binding heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and laying them on little children's shoulders, like the Scribes and Pharisees of old, and not touching the same with one of his fingers; for he had plenty of money, and a fine house to live in; which was more than the poor turnips had.
And next he came to Oldwisefabledom, where the folks were all heathens, and worshipped a howling ape.
And there he found a little boy sitting in the middle of the road, and crying bitterly.
"What are you crying for?" said Tom.
"Because I am not so frightened as I could wish to be."
"Not frightened? You are a queer little chap; but, if you want to be frightened, here goes—Boo!"
"Ah," said the little boy, "that is very kind of you; but I don't feel that it has made any impression."
Tom offered to upset him, punch him, stamp on him, fettle him over the head with a brick, or anything else whatsoever which would give him the slightest comfort.
But he only thanked Tom very civilly, in fine long words which he had heard other folk use, and which, therefore, he thought were fit and proper to use himself; and cried on till his papa and mamma came.
Then Tom came to a very quiet place, called Leaveheavenalone. And there the sun was drawing water out of the sea to make steam-threads, and the wind was twisting them up to make cloud-patterns, till they had worked between them the loveliest wedding veil of Chantilly lace, and hung it up in their own Crystal Palace for any one to buy who could afford it; while the good old sea never grudged, for she knew they would pay her back honestly. So the sun span, and the wind wove, and all went well with the great steam loom; as is likely, considering—and considering— and considering—-
And at last, after innumerable adventures, each more wonderful than the last, Tom saw before him a huge building.
He walked towards it, wondering what it was, and having a strange fancy that he might find Mr. Grimes inside it, 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. 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—for the thong had got loose in running—and marched on by Tom's side.
"Why have you no policeman to carry you?" asked Tom after a while.
"Because we are not like those clumsy-made truncheons in the land world, which cannot go with-out having a whole man to carry them about. We do our own work for ourselves; and do it very well, though I say it who should not."
"Then why have you a thong to your handle?" asked Tom.
"To hang ourselves up by, of course, when we are off duty."
Tom had got his answer, and had no more to say, till they came up to the great iron door of the prison. And there the truncheon knocked twice, with its own head.
A wicket in the door opened, and out looked a tremendous old brass blunderbuss charged up to the muzzle with slugs, who was the porter; and Tom started back a little at the sight of him.
"What case is this?" he asked in a deep voice, out of his broad bell mouth.
"If you please, sir, it is no case; only a young gentleman from her ladyship, who wants to see Grimes, the master sweep."
"Grimes?" said the blunderbuss. And he pulled in his muzzle, perhaps to look over his prison lists.
"Grimes is up chimney No. 345," he said from inside. "So the young gentleman had better go on to the roof."
Tom looked up at the enormous wall, which seemed at least ninety miles high, and wondered how he should ever get up; but when he hinted that to the truncheon, it settled the matter in a moment. For it whisked round, and gave him such a shove behind as sent him up to the roof in no time, with his little dog under his arm.
And there he walked along the leads, till he met another truncheon, and told him his errand.
"Very good," it said. "Come along; but it will be of no use. He is the most unremorseful, hard-hearted, foul-mouthed fellow I have in charge; and thinks about nothing but beer and pipes, which are not allowed here, of course."
So they walked along over the leads, and very sooty they were, and Tom thought the chimneys must want sweeping very much. But he was surprised to see that the soot did not stick to his feet, or dirty them in the least. Neither did the live coals, which were lying about in plenty, burn him; for he was a water baby.
And at last they came to chimney No. 345. Out of the top of it, his head and shoulders just showing, stuck poor Mr. Grimes, so sooty, and bleared, and ugly, that Tom could hardly bear to look at him. And in his mouth was a pipe; but it was not alight, though he was pulling at it with all his might.
"Attention, Mr. Grimes," said the truncheon; "here is a gentleman come to see you."
But Mr. Grimes only said bad words, and kept grumbling, "My pipe won't draw. My pipe won't draw."
"Keep a civil tongue, and attend!" said the truncheon; and popped up just like Punch, hitting Grimes such a crack over the head with itself, that his brains rattled inside like a dried walnut in its shell. He tried to get his hands out, and rub the place; but he could not, for they were stuck fast in the chimney. Now he was forced to attend.
"Hey!" he said, "why, it's Tom! I suppose you have come here to laugh at me, you spiteful little atomy?"
Tom assured him he had not, but only wanted to help him.
"I don't want anything except beer, and that I can't get; and a light to this bothering pipe, and that I can't get either."
"I'll get you one," said Tom; and he took up a live coal (there were plenty lying about) and put it to Grimes' pipe; but it went out instantly.
"It's no use," said the truncheon, leaning itself up against the chimney and looking on. "I tell you, it is no use. His heart is so cold that it freezes everything that comes near him, You will see that presently, plain enough."
"Oh, of course, it's my fault. Everything's always my fault," said Grimes. "Now don't go to hit me again" (for the truncheon started upright, and looked very wicked); "you know, if my arms were only free, you daren't hit me then."
The truncheon leant back against the chimney, and took no notice of the personal insult, like a well-trained policeman as it was, though it was ready enough to avenge any transgression against morality or order.
"But can't I help you in any other way? Can't I help you to get out of this chimney?" said Tom.
"No," interposed the truncheon; "he has come to the place where everybody must help himself; and he will find it out, I hope, before he has done with me."
"Oh, yes," said Grimes, "of course it's me. Did I ask to be brought here into the prison? Did I ask to be set to sweep your foul chimneys? Did I ask to have lighted straw put under me to make me go up? Did I ask to stick fast in the very first chimney of all, because it was so shamefully clogged up with soot? Did I ask to stay here—I don't know how long—a hundred years, I do believe, and never get my pipe, nor my beer, nor nothing fit for a beast, let alone a man?"
"No," answered a solemn voice behind. "No more did Tom, when you behaved to him in the very same way."
It was Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid. And when the truncheon saw her, it started bolt upright—Attention!—and made such a low bow, that if it had not been full of the spirit of justice, it must have tumbled on its end, and probably hurt its one eye. And Tom made his bow too.
"Oh, ma'am," he said, "don't think about me; that's all past and gone, and good times and bad times and all times pass over. But may not I help poor Mr. Grimes? Mayn't I try and get some of these bricks away, that he may move his arms?"
"You may try, of course," she said.
So Tom pulled and tugged at the bricks, but he could not move one. And then he tried to wipe Mr. Grimes' face, but the soot would not come off.
"Oh, dear!" he said. "I have come all this way, through all these terrible places, to help you, and now I am of no use at all."
"You had best leave me alone," said Grimes; "you are a good-natured, forgiving little chap, and that's truth; but you'd best be off. The hail's coming on soon, and it will beat the eyes out of your little head."
"What hail?"
"Why, hail that falls every evening here; and till it comes close to me, it's like so much warm rain; but then it comes to hail over my head, and knocks me about like small shot."
"That hail will never come any more," said the strange lady. "I have told you before what it was. It was your mother's tears, those which she shed when she prayed for you by her bedside; but your cold heart froze it into hail. But she is gone to heaven now, and will weep no more for her graceless son."
Then Grimes was silent awhile; and then he looked very sad.
"So my old mother's gone, and I never there to speak to her! Ah! a good woman she was, and might have been a happy one, in her little school there in Vendale, if it hadn't been for me and my bad ways."
"Did she keep the school at Vendale?" asked Tom. And then he told Grimes all the story of his going to her house, and how she could not abide the sight of a chimney-sweep, and then how kind she was, and how he turned into a water baby.
"Ah!" said Grimes, "good reason she had to hate the sight of a chimney- sweep. I ran away from her and took up with the sweeps, and never let her know where I was, nor sent her a penny to help her, and now it's too late—too late!" said Mr. Grimes.
And he began crying and blubbering like a great baby, till his pipe dropped out of his mouth, and broke all to bits.
"Oh, dear, if I was but a little chap in Vendale again, to see the clear beck, and the apple orchard, and the yew hedge, how different I would go on! But it's too late now. So you go along, you kind little chap, and don't stand to look at a man crying, that's old enough to be your father, and never feared the face of man, nor of worse neither. But I'm beat now, and beat I must be. I've made my bed, and I must lie on it. Foul I would be, and foul I am. as an Irishwoman said to me once; and little I heeded it. It's all my own fault: but it's too late." And he cried so bitterly that Tom began crying too.
"Never too late," said the fairy, in such a strange soft, new voice that Tom looked up at her; and she was so beautiful for the moment, that Tom half fancied she was her sister.
No more was it too late. For as poor Grimes cried and blubbered on, his own tears did what his mother's could not do, and Tom's could not do, and nobody's on earth could do for him; for they washed the soot off his face and off his clothes; and then they washed the mortar away from between the bricks; and the chimney crumbled down; and Grimes began to get out of it.
Up jumped the truncheon, and was going to hit him on the crown a tremendous thump, and drive him down again like a cork into a bottle. But the strange lady put it aside.
"Will you obey me if I give you a chance?"
"As you please, ma'am. You're stronger than me—that I know too well, and wiser than me, I know too well also. And as for being my own master, I've fared ill enough with that as yet. So whatever your ladyship pleases to order me; for I'm beat, and that's the truth."
"Be it so then—you may come out. But remember, disobey me again, and into a worse place still you go."
"I beg pardon, ma'am, but I never disobeyed you that I know of. I never had the honour of setting eyes upon you till I came to these ugly quarters."
"Never saw me? Who said to you, 'Those that will, be foul, foul they will be'?"
Grimes looked up; and Tom looked up too; for the voice was that of the Irishwoman who met them the day that they went out together to Harthover. "I gave you your warning then, but you gave it yourself a thousand times before and since. Every bad word that you said—every cruel and mean thing that you did—every time that you got tipsy—every day that you went dirty—you were disobeying me, whether you knew it or not."
"If I'd only known, ma'am—-"
"You knew well enough that you were disobeying something, though you did not know it was me. But come out and take your chance. Perhaps it may be your last."
So Grimes stepped out of the chimney, and really, if it had not been for the scars on his face, he looked as clean and respectable as a master sweep need look.
"Take him away," she said to the truncheon, "and give him his ticket of leave."
"And what is he to do, ma'am?"
"Get him to sweep out the crater of Etna; he will find some very steady men working out their time there, who will teach him his business: but mind, if that crater gets choked again, and there is an earthquake in consequence, bring them all to me, and I shall investigate the case very severely."
So the truncheon marched off Mr. Grimes, looking as meek as a drowned worm.
And for aught I know, or do not know, he is sweeping the crater of Etna to this very day.
"And now," said the fairy to Tom, "your work here is done. You may as well go back again."
"I should he glad enough to go," said Tom, "but how am I to get up that great hole again, now the steam has stopped blowing?"
"I will take you up the back stairs, but I must bandage your eyes first; for I never allow anybody to see those back stairs of mine."
"I am sure I shall not tell anybody about them, ma'am, if you bid me not."
"Aha! So you think, my little man. But you would soon forget your promise if you got back into the land world. I never put things into little folks' heads which are but too likely to come there of themselves. So come—now I must bandage your eyes."
So she tied the bandage on his eyes with one hand, and with the other she took it off.
"Now," she said, "you are safe up the stairs." Tom opened his eyes very wide, and his mouth, too; for he had not, as he thought, moved a single step. But, when he looked round him, there could be no doubt that he was safe up the back stairs, whatsoever they may be, which no man is going to tell you, for the plain reason that no man knows.
The first thing which Tom saw was the black cedars, high and sharp against the rosy dawn; and Saint Brandan's Isle reflected double in the still, broad, silver sea. The wind sang softly in the cedars, and the water sang among the caves: the sea birds sang as they streamed out into the ocean, and the land birds as they built among the boughs; and the air was so full of song that it stirred Saint Brandan and her hermits, as they slumbered in the shade; and they moved their good old lips, and sang their morning hymn amid their dreams. But among all the songs one came across the water more sweet and clear than all; for it was the song of a young girl's voice.
And what was the song which she sang? Ah, my little man, I am too old to sing that song, and you too young to understand it. But have patience, and keep your eye single, and your hands clean, and you will learn some day to sing it yourself, without needing any man to teach you.
And as Tom neared the island, there sat upon a rock the most graceful creature that ever was seen, looking down, with her chin upon her hand, and paddling with her feet in the water. And when they came to her she looked up, and behold, it was Ellie.
"Oh, Miss Ellie," said he, "how you are grown!"
"Oh, Tom," said she, "how you are grown, too!"
And no wonder; they were both quite grown up—he into a tall man, and she into a beautiful woman.
"Perhaps I may be grown," she said. "I have had time enough; for I have been sitting here waiting for you many a hundred years, till I thought you were never coming."
"Many a hundred years?" thought Tom; but he had seen so much in his travels that he had quite given up being astonished; and, indeed, he could think of nothing but Ellie. So he stood and looked at Ellie, and Ellie looked at him; and they liked the employment so much that they stood and looked for seven years more, and neither spoke nor stirred.
At last they heard the fairy say, "Attention, children. Are you never going to look at me again?"
"We have been looking at you all this while," they said. And so they thought they had been.
"Then look at me once more," she said.
They looked—and both of them cried out at once, "Oh, who are you, after all?"
"You are our dear Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby."
"No, you are good Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid; but you are grown quite beautiful now!"
"To you," said the fairy. "But look again."
"You are Mother Carey," said Tom, in a very low, solemn voice; for he had found out something which made him very happy, and yet frightened him more than all that he had ever seen.
"But you are grown quite young again."
"To you," said the fairy. "Look again."
"You are the Irishwoman who met me the day I went to Harthover!"
And when they looked she was neither of them, and yet all of them at once.
"My name is written in my eyes, if you have eyes to see it there."
And they looked into her great, deep, soft eyes, and they changed again and again into every hue, as the light changes in a diamond.
"Now read my name," said she, at last.
And her eyes flashed, for one moment, clear, white, blazing light; but the children could not read her name; for they were dazzled, and hid their faces in their hands.
"Not yet, young things, not yet," said she, smiling; and then she turned to Ellie.
"You may take him home with you now on Sundays, Ellie. He has won his spurs in the great battle, and become fit to go with you and be a man, because he has done the thing he did not like."
So Tom went home with Ellie on Sundays, and sometimes on week-days, too; and he is now a great man of science, and can plan railroads, and steam engines, and electric telegraphs, and rifled guns, and so forth; and knows everything about everything, except why a hen's egg doesn't turn into a crocodile, and two or three other little things. And all this from what he learnt when he was a water baby, underneath the sea.
"And of course Tom married Ellie?"
My dear child, what a silly notion! Don't you know that no one ever marries in a fairy tale, under the rank of a prince or a princess?
"And Tom's dog?"
Oh, you may see him any clear night in July; for the old dog star was so worn out by the last three hot summers that there have been no dog days since; so that they had to take him down and put Tom's dog up in his place. Therefore, as new brooms sweep clean, we may hope for some warm weather this year. And that is the end of my story.