The Water-Babies by Charles Kingsley 5:2 Free Children's Library Audiobooks Traditional.
chapter 5 part 2 of the water babies by charles kingsley read for librivox.org by corey samuel but i wish tom had given up all his naughty tricks and left off tormenting dumb animals now that he had plenty of playfellows to amuse him instead of that i am sorry to say he would meddle with the creatures all but the water snakes for they would stand no nonsense so he tickled the madrapores to make them shut up and frightened the crabs to make them hide in the sand and peep out at him with the tips of their eyes and put stones into the anemones mouths to make them fancy that their dinner was coming the other children warned him and said take care what you are at mrs b dumbay as you did is coming but tom never heeded them being quite riotous with high spirits and good luck till one friday morning early mrs b dumbay as you did came indeed a very tremendous lady she was and when the children saw her they all stood in a row very upright indeed and smoothed down their bathing dresses and put their hands behind them just as if they were going to be examined by the inspector and she had on a black bonnet and a black shawl and no crinoline at all and a pair of large green spectacles and a great hooked nose hooked so much the bridge of it stood up quite above her eyebrows and under her arm she carried a great birch rod indeed she was so ugly that tom was tempted to make faces at her but did not but he did not admire the look of the birch rod under her arm and she looked at the children one by one and seemed very much pleased with them though she never asked them one question about how they were behaving and then began giving them all sorts of nice sea things see cakes see apples see oranges see bull's eyes see toffee and the very best of all she gave sea ices made out of sea cows cream which never melt underwater and if you don't quite believe me then just think what is more cheap and plentiful than sea rock then why should there not be sea toffee as well and everyone can find sea lemons ready quartered too if they will look for them at low tide and see grapes too sometimes hanging in bunches and if you will go to nice you will find the fish market full of sea fruit which they call fruta di mer though i suppose they call them fruit de mer now out of complement to that most successful and therefore most immaculate potentate who is seemingly desirous of inheriting the blessing pronounced on those who remove their neighbor's landmark and perhaps that is the very reason why the place is called nice because there are so many nice things in the sea there at least if it is not it ought to be now little tom watched all these sweet things given away till his mouth watered and his eyes grew as round as an owls for he hoped that his turn would come at last and so it did for the lady called him up and held out her fingers with something in them and popped it into his mouth and lo and behold it was a nasty cold hard pebble you were a very cruel woman said he and began to whimper and you were a very cruel boy who puts pebbles into the sea and enemies mouths to take them in and make them fancy that they had caught a good dinner as you did to them so i must do to you who told you that said tom you did yourself this very minute tom had never opened his lips so he's very much taken aback indeed yes everyone tells me exactly what they have done wrong and that without knowing it themselves so there is no use trying to hide anything from me now go and be a good boy and i will put no more pebbles in your mouth if you put none in other creatures i did not know there was any harm in it said tom then you know now people continually say that to me but i tell them if you don't know that fire burns that is no reason that it should not burn you and if you don't know that dirt breeds fever that is no reason why the fevers should not kill you the lobster did not know that...