“You’ve got enough for today,” replied the old bee who crawled up and down outside in the passage and had been appointed head-nurse to the baby bees.
“Ah, but I’m hungry!” cried the little grub. “And then I want to have a princess’s room; I feel so cramped in here.”
“Oh, just listen to her!” said the old bee, sarcastically. “One would think she was a dainty little princess by the pretensions she puts forward! You were born to toil and drudge, my little friend. A common working-bee, that’s what you are; and you’ll never be anything else in all your days.”
“Ah, but I want to be a queen!” said the grub and thumped on the door.
The old bee, of course, made no reply to such silly trash, but went on to the others. Everywhere they were crying for more food; and the little grub could hear it all.
“It’s really hard,” she thought, “that we should be so hungry.”
And then she tapped on the wall and called to the princess on the other side:
“Give me a little of your honey! Let me come in to you in your room. I am lying here and starving and I am quite as good as you.”
“Ah, you just wait till I’m queen-regnant!” said the princess. “Be sure I shan’t forget your impudence.”
But she had hardly said this before the other princesses began to bawl most terribly: