"Well," said the mussel, "it was when he got engaged. People used to come and see him sometimes, you know, and, of course, they all had to look at the wonderful mussel that refused to die. There was a young girl among them who was very cross with him for teasing me so. But he only laughed at her. Well, when I had been there a year, he got engaged to her.... They were sitting on the sofa just by me, when it happened, and I was not so dead but that I could lift my shells a little and see the whole thing: they're funny creatures, those human beings! Well, then he asked her if there was anything she would like on that joyful day. Yes, she would like me to be put back in the water again. He laughed at her. But off they went with me to the very pond where I was fished up and threw me in. Then I settled down among the other fellows and began all over again."
"Yes ... love!" said the reed-warbler, looking round at his wife.
"Ah ... love!" said she, returning his glance.
"I have nothing to say against it," said the mussel. "But, as a matter of fact, I have no personal experience of it."
"Surely you have a wife," said the reed-warbler. "Or, perhaps ... perhaps you are a lady ...?"
"I am neither one or the other. I am just a mussel. And I lay my eggs and then that's done!"
"Do you look after your children nicely?" asked the reed-warbler.
"What next!" exclaimed the mussel. "My children are very remarkable individuals. They are sailors."
"Sailors?"
"Yes, they are indeed. As soon as they come out of the egg, they hoist a great sail and put out. It's only when they grow older, if they haven't been eaten by that time, that they settle down as decent mussels with shells upon them and philosophy in their constitutions."