‘No, I’m not,’ said David. ‘I’m a boy.’
‘Then you can’t be a Field-Marshal. That’s one to me.’
‘Are we playing a game?’ he asked. ‘Is it a sort of happy families?’
‘No. Two to me. Go away. I’ve got to be busy again.’
‘What you mean by being busy,’ said David, ‘is that you want to eat something.’
The trout’s eye began to get glazed and vacant.
‘Worms!’ it said.
‘I believe that’s all you ever think about,’ said David.
The stupid mouth began opening and shutting, and David began counting, rather relieved to find that he could do so again. The seventh time it opened the trout said:
‘No, it isn’t.’