"Have you any news of your children?"
"No, thank goodness!"
"Oh, really?" said the perch. "I have an idea that I ate a couple of them at breakfast.... Excuse me for being so frank!"
"Not at all, not at all!" said the eel. "The family is large enough even so."
"How on earth did they come up here from the sea?" asked the roach.
"Just as I did, I imagine," said the eel. "They've got scent of something to be made here; and two or three miles are nothing to them."
"Heigho!" said Mrs. Reed-Warbler.
"Are you sighing because of all this fuss with the children? Well, madam, what did I tell you?"
"Not at all," replied Mrs. Reed-Warbler. "I could never behave like you."
