THERE are no fairies, did you say? Why, whatever are we coming to?” said Uncle James.  
“But I’ve never seen one,” said .
 
“I daresay not, but what do you suppose makes your ball bounce? Why, the fairy inside it, to be sure.”
 
Harry laughed at the time, but afterwards he couldn’t help thinking about it. Did fairies really live in india-rubber balls? If not, what made them bounce?
 
He thought and he thought and he thought—and at last he took out the new brown-handled knife Uncle James had given him, and he cut a hole in his india-rubber ball.
 
“Now............