"Dear lady! Dear lady!" cried the cray-fish from down in the mud.
"Well?" said the reed-warbler.
"I can't stand this!" said Mrs. Reed-Warbler.
"I only wanted to ask you, dear lady, not to forget me and those shells," said the cray-fish.
"I won't have anything to do with an odious woman like you, who eats her own children," replied Mrs. Reed-Warbler.
"Oh, dear!... Surely, ma'am, you don't believe that mean carp who was here the other day? A horrid, malicious fellow like that! He doesn't even belong to the pond, you know. He's a regular man's fish. They only put him here to fatten him up and eat him afterwards ... I saw it myself last year; he was a mere spawn then; now he has grown big and stout on men's food; and he has plenty of time, too, since he doesn't have to work like another; and so he runs round and slanders poor people and robs them of the sympathy of kind ladies like yourself."
"Stop your chattering, Goody Cray-Fish," said the reed-warbler. "You'll drive my wife quite silly with your silly talk."
"Oh, dear!... Well, I beg a thousand pardons," said the cray-fish. "I only want to remind the lady about the egg-shells."
Then she went backwards into her hole.
"Why will you think so much about all that rabble?" said the reed-warbler to his wife. "There are other things in the world besides cray-fish and eels and spiders. Find something pretty to look at. That would do you good just now."