Page:The water-babies.djvu/168

THE WATER BABIES So the old fairy took him in hand very severely there and then. But she says she is always most severe with the best people, because there is most chance of curing them, and therefore they are the patients who pay her best; for she has to work on the same salary as the Emperor of China's physicians (it is a pity that all do not)—no cure, no pay.

So she took the poor professor in hand: and because he was not content with things as they are, she filled his head with things as they are not, to try if he would like them better; and because he did not choose to believe in a water-baby when he saw it, she made him believe in worse things than water-babies—in unicorns, fire-drakes, manticoras, basilisks, amphisbænas, griffins, phoenixes, rocs, ores, dog-headed men, three-headed dogs, three-bodied geryons, and other pleasant creatures, which folk think never existed yet, and which folk hope never will exist, though they know nothing about the matter, and never will; and these creatures so upset, terrified, flustered, aggravated, confused, astounded, horrified, and totally flabbergasted the poor professor that the doctors said that he was out of his wits for three months; and perhaps they were right as they are now and then.

So all the doctors in the country were called in to make a report on his case; and, of course, every one of them flatly contradicted the other: else what use is there in being men of science? But at last the majority agreed on a report in the true medical language, one 148