"It sounds almost absurd—but—I wanted to tell you—we ought to pray," he stammers, "it is the best thing against sorcery!"
"To pray? Perhaps so!!" Whereupon the two pike discover that it is years since they prayed last.
They cannot remember a word.
"Ashrè,"[116] begins one.
"Ashrè," repeats the other, and comes to a standstill.
"Oh, I want to pray!" moans the first.
"So do I!" chimes in the second, "for when all is said and done, we are but fish!"
A door opens in the wall, a little way, and two heads are seen in the aperture—a tipsy-looking man's head, and a woman's with curl papers.
"Ah," exclaims the man's head, joyously, "this is something like! Pike—carp—and all the other good things."
"I should hope so! And I have sent for meat besides."