CHAPTER XIII
Smaly and Redy are taken to see the Fleet: The Prisoner arrives and the Wigs fly in terror: Smaly and Redy at last have speech with the Prisoner.
At this moment a crowd of Wigs ran in at the door crying:
"The fleet has arrived, the fleet has arrived."
"The fleet?" asked Smaly. "I haven't seen any sea."
"There isn't any sea, or any water in the river," replied the Mother of the Crow.
"Do you imagine," demanded the Young Stork, "that a nation like ours is going to deprive itself of the splendid luxury of a fleet simply because chance has decreed that the ocean should not come as far as its frontiers?"
"Besides, a fleet's so ornamental," said the Mother of the Crow.