In a moment, I am in the water and find him and catch hold of him.
He stands on the grass, dripping with wet, spluttering and coughing. His thin clothes are clinging to his thin body, his face is black with mud. But out of the mud gleams a pair of angry eyes:
"There was no mermaid," he says.
I do not at once know what to reply and I have no time to think.
"Do you write that sort of stories?" he asks.
"Yes," I say, shamefaced.
"I don't like any of you," he says. "You make fun of a little boy."
He turns his back on me and, proud and wet, goes indoors without once looking round.
This evening, Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen disappear in a mysterious manner, which is never explained. He will miss them greatly, at first; but he will never be fooled again, not if I were to give him the sun and moon in his hand.