""Well, there I found myself, and I couldn"t make out what I was. I was not a fish, although I had gills for breathing in the water, just as fishes have.
""Presently I began to feel hungry, and it seemed quite natural for me to go to the water-plants and nibble off the soft shoots. I did not wish for any other food, and my mouth seemed made on purposefor this, for it was placed not in front of my head, but under my chin, if you can make that out.
""It was not a bad sort of life on the whole. I enjoyed myself very well, but I had to be always dodging the big hungry fishes, who wanted to make a meal of me.
""Well, this sort of thing went on for about six or eight weeks, when one day I began to be very frightened. I thought I must be growing deformed in some way, for I found two humps forming, one on each side of my tail.
""Day by day these humps grew, and presently two others began to show just behind my head.
""This was alarming, but it was nothing compared with my horror at finding that my beautiful waving tail was shrinking and wasting away by degrees,""Day by day I swam about trying to make the best of it, when at last my tail went altogether. It dropped off.
