They feel the walls, but the weak pike-eyes do not see them.
The glass is green—it is just like river water—and yet there is no getting out.
"It is witchcraft!" says one pike to the other.
The other agrees with him.
"To-morrow there is an auction. The other bidders have bewitched us."
"Some crayfish or frog has done this."
———
It is only a short time since the net drew them out of the water. When they got into the air they had fainted, to recover consciousness inside a barrel of which the lid had been hammered down.
"How the days are drawing in!" they had observed both at once.
There was very little room in the barrel, scarcely sufficient to turn in, and hardly water enough for anyone to breathe. What with having fainted before, and now this difficulty in breathing, they had fallen into a doze, and had dreamt of all sorts of things, of the fair, and even of the opera and the ballet. But the dream-angel never showed them any kind of barrel.