Mrs. Reed-Warbler was greatly touched; and her husband began to sing, for he was afraid lest all this sadness should make the eggs melancholy and spoil the children's voices.
But, at that moment, the cray-fish screamed and struck out with her claws and carried on like a mad woman.
"Look!... Ma'am ... do look!... There comes the monster!"
Mrs. Reed-Warbler leant so far over the edge of the nest that she would have plumped into the pond if her husband had not given her a good shove. But he had no time to scold her, for he was curious himself. They both stared down into the water.
And there, as she had said, came Goody Cray-Fish's husband slowly creeping up to her backwards.
"Good-day, mother," he said. "I'm going to change."
"Oh, are you?" she screamed. "Yes, that's just like you. You can run and change at any moment while your poor lawfully-wedded wife has to go about in her old clothes. You would do better to think of me and the children."
"Why should I, mother?" he replied, calmly. "What good would it do if I thought of you? And what need have I to meddle with women's work? What must be must be. Hold your tongue now, while it lasts, for this is no joke!"
Then the reed-warblers saw how he raised himself on his tail and split across the middle of his back. Then he bent and twisted and pulled off his coat over his head.