“Come, now,” said Ogrebones, “none of your impudence, old longshanks. I’m the king—the kingfisher; and I order you off; so go at once.”
“Ho-ho-ho,” laughed the tall bird. “And pray who made you a king? I’m not going to be driven off by such a scrubby little thing as you, even if you have got such grand feathers on your back. Why, if I were to shut my bill upon your neck, that head of yours would drop off regularly scissored, and then you’d be just such a king as Charles the First.”
“Oh, dear!” said the kingfisher, “only hark at him! I never heard such a character before in my life.”
“He nearly killed one of my little ones,” quacked the duck, coming up.
“Stuck his beak in my back,” said a frog, putting his nose out of the water; and then seeing that the heron was going to make a dart at him, “Ouf,” said he, popping down again in a hurry, and never stopping until had crept close down to the bottom of the pond where he crept under the weeds, and lay there all day, lost frightened to death.
“Keep your little flat bills at home, ma’am,” said the heron. “But really,” he said politely, “I did not know they were yours, or I should not have done so; but who would have thought that those little yellow dabs were children of such a beautifully white and graceful creature as you are?”
Whereupon the duck blushed, and spread one of her webbed feet before her face, and looked quite pleased at the compliment.
“Don’t listen to him,” croaked the kingfisher, backing into his hole; “he’s a cheat, and a bad character, and thief, and a—”
But the heron here made a poke at his royal highness with his great scissors bill, and the kingfisher scuffled out of sight in a fright, having learnt the lesson that a small tyrant, however grandly he may dress, is not always believed in; for with all his bright colours and gaudy plumes he was no match for the great sober-hued, flap-winged heron, who only laughed at him, and all his grand swaggering; and, as soon as he was gone, settled himself down to his work, and caught fish enough for a good meal, for he felt quite certain that he had as good a right to the fish as the little king, who had had it his own way so long that he thought everybody would give way to him.
Poke went the heron’s bill, and out came a finny struggler; but it was no use to kick, for Bluescrags never left go when once he had hold of a fish, and he was just gobbling it down when—