the mole-cricket turned up from nowhere in particular.
The mole-cricket turned up from nowhere in particular, and his voice was the tinkling of a silver bell. It would have taken a score of him to make a mole.
“I am older than the mole,” he said, “yet from him I take my name. In dry ground I make poor progress; where it is muddy and swampy, I can run through it, like a fish through water. When the mole came into being, he borrowed the pattern of my fore feet—shovel and pick and spade in one. Like me, he learnt to run backwards or forwards, and that is why his hair has no set in it. Whichever way he goes, the clinging dust is swept from off its surface. He comes from grubby depths as polished as a pin. And so do I; but from a different cause. I am so highly polished that the damp soil cannot cleave to me.”
“Burrowing,” said the hedgehog, “is a low form of defence. What says the water-rat?”
“I burrow, too,” said the water-rat. “If I have time, I burrow in the water. I part the surface with the tiniest ripple, keeping my fore feet close packed to my sides, and swim with hind legs only, below the surface, neatly as a natterjack. If I were better treated, I should never burrow in the banks at all. But I must have somewhere to go to when my breath fails me. I eat the mare’s tail and the pith of reed-stems. That does no one any harm, not even a trout-preserver. But of all good viands, commend me to a parsnip.”
“This is neither defence nor offence,” said the hedgehog.
“The only offensive thing I have is a pair of incisors,” said the water-rat. “They are orange-yellow and very strong. As regards defence, I can do more in the water than most.”
“not more than me,”
the young trout broke in.