Tommy Smith didn’t know, so he said, “What would happen, Mr. Peewit?”
“It is too dreadful to think about,” the peewit said. “The very idea of it makes one shudder. A world without peewits! Oh dear! a nice sort of world that would be!”
The mother peewit shook her head. “It could hardly go on, dear; could it?” she said.
“It might,” answered the father peewit, “but there would be very little meaning in it.”
Tommy Smith certainly thought the world might go on without peewits, but he didn’t quite understand the last part of the sentence. “But it seems to me,” he said to himself, “that animals think themselves very important.” “And are you a useful animal?” he said aloud to the father peewit,—for the mother peewit was busy again with her eggs and the young one.
“Useful!” exclaimed the peewit. “Why, we are sometimes put into gardens to eat the slugs and the insects there. I suppose that is being useful.”
“Oh yes,” said Tommy Smith; “if you don’t eat the cherries, or the strawberries, or the asparagus, or”—
“We are not vegetarians,” said the peewit, “we prefer an animal diet, and we only eat things that do harm.”
“But don’t you eat worms?” said Tommy Smith.
“Of course we do,” said the peewit.