XXV 



THE WATER BABIES 46] 



looks you straight in the face and disobeys you. I told him 

 not to go on the wet grass again. He just looked up boldly, 

 straight at me, as much as to say, ' What do you mean by 

 ordering me about?' and deliberately walked on to the 

 grass." 



The disobedient youth who so charmed his grandfather's 

 heart was the prototype of Sandy in Mrs. Humphry Ward's 

 David Grieve. When the book came out my father wrote 

 to the author : " We are very proud of Julian's apotheosis. 

 He is a most delightful imp, and the way in which he used 

 to defy me on occasion, when he was here, was quite refresh- 

 ing. The strength of his conviction that people who inter- 

 fere with his freedom are certainly foolish, probably wicked, 

 is quite Gladstonian." 



A year after, when Julian had learned to write, and was 

 reading the immortal Water Babies, wherein fun is poked 

 at his grandfather's name among the authorities on water- 

 babies and water-beasts of every description, he greatly 

 desired more light as to the reality of water-babies. There 

 is a picture by Linley Sambourne, showing my father and 

 Owen examining a bottled water-baby under big magnify- 

 ing glasses. Here, then, was a real authority to consult. 

 So he wrote a letter of enquiry, first anxiously asking his 

 mother if he would receive in reply a " proper letter " that 

 he could read for himself, or a " wrong kind of letter " that 

 must be read to him. 



Dear Grandpater — Have you seen a Waterbaby ? Did you 



put it in a bottle ? Did it wonder if it could get out ? Can I see 



it some day? — Your loving T 



1 Julian. 



To this he received the following reply from his grand- 

 father, neatly printed, letter by letter, very unlike the or- 

 derly confusion with which his pen usually rushed across 

 the paper — time being so short for such a multitude of 

 writing — to the great perplexity, often, of his foreign cor- 

 respondents. 



