"Never had to stay shut up, though, more than ten minutes, did you?"
"No," answered Tom, "never."
"Well, think of me cooped up in an old cage for two weeks!" said the Poker. "That was woe enough for a lifetime, but it wasn't half what I had altogether. The other creatures in the Zoo growled and shrieked all night long; none of us ever got a quarter enough to eat, and several times the monkey in the cage next to me would reach his long arm into my prison and yank out half a dozen of my feathers at once. In fact, I had nothing but mishaps all the time. As the poet says:
"Talk about your troubles,
Talk about your woes,
Yours are only bubbles,
Sir, compared with those.
"At the end of two weeks I was nearly frantic. I don't think I could have stood it another week—but fortunately at the end of the month back came the Fairy again.
"'How do you like being an eagle?' she said.
"'I'd rather be a tree rooted to the ground in the midst of a dense forest than all the eagles in the world,' said I.
"'Very well,' said she. 'It shall be so. Good-night.'
"In the morning I was a tree—and if there is anything worse than being a dog or an eagle it's being a tree," said the Poker. "I could hear processions going by with fine bands of music in the distance, but I couldn't stir a step to see them. Boys would come along and climb up into my branches and shake me nearly to pieces. Cows came and chewed up my leaves, and one day the wood-cutters came and were just about to cut me down when the Fairy appeared again and sent them away.
"'They will be back again tomorrow,' she said. 'Do you wish to remain a tree?'