"
"Want what?" said Tom, quite taken aback by his impudence.
"Your leg, which you are kind enough to hold out for me to sit on.
I must just go and see after my wife for a few minutes. Dear me!
what a troublesome business a family is!" (though the idle little
rogue did nothing at all, but left his poor wife to lay all the
eggs by herself). "When I come back, I shall be glad of it, if
you'll be so good as to keep it sticking out just so;" and off he
flew.
Tom thought him a very cool sort of personage; and still more so,
when, in five minutes he came back, and said--"Ah, you were tired
waiting? Well, your other leg will do as well."
And he popped himself down on Tom's knee, and began chatting away
in his squeaking voice.
"So you live under the water? It's a low place. I lived there for
some time; and was very shabby and dirty. But I didn't choose that
that should last. So I turned respectable, and came up to the top,
and put on this gray suit. It's a very business-like suit, you
think, don't you?"
"Very neat and quiet indeed," said Tom.
"Yes, one must be quiet and neat and respectable, and all that sort
of thing for a little, when one becomes a family man. But I'm
tired of it, that's the truth.
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