"I want to know," said he, opening his mouth very wide indeed and breathing in a great deal of water as he spoke, "I want to know where I feel queerly."
"I can't tell," said the Mother Minnow, between mouthfuls. "No fish can tell."
"Well, what makes me feel queerly there?"
"The storm," said she.
"How does it make me feel queerly?"
"I don't know," said the Mother Minnow.
"Who does know?" asked the young Minnow.
"Nobody," said she, swallowing some more pondweed of one kind and then beginning on another. "Do eat something or you will be very hungry by and by."
"Well, why does a storm make me feel so?" asked he.
"Because!" said she. She said it very firmly and she was quite right in saying it then, for there was a cause, yet she could not tell what it was. There are only about seven times in one's life when it is right to answer in this way, and what the other six are you must decide for yourself.