THE OAK Who speaks?... I seem to recognise the honeyed accents of the Lime-tree....
THE FIR-TREE Yes, it's he....
THE OAK So there is a renegade among us, as among the Animals?... Hitherto we have only had to deplore the disloyalty of the Fruit-trees; but they are not real trees....
THE PIG (rolling his small eyes gluttonously) I think we should first eat the little girl.... She ought to be very tender....
TYLTYL What's he saying?... Just wait a bit, you...
THE CAT I don't know what is the matter with them; but things are beginning to look badly....
THE OAK Silence!... What we have to decide is which of us shall have the honour of striking the first blow, who shall ward off from, our tops the greatest danger that has threatened us since the birth of Man....
THE FIR-TREE That honour falls to you, our king and our patriarch....
THE OAK Is that the Fir-tree speaking?... Alas, I am too old!... I am blind and infirm and my numbed arms no longer obey me.... No, to you, brother, ever green, ever upright, to you, who have witnessed the birth of most of these trees, to you be the glory, in default of myself, of the noble act of our deliverance....
THE FIR-TREE I thank you, venerable father.... But as I shall, in any case, have the honour of burying the two victims, I should be afraid of arousing the just jealousy of my colleagues; and I think that, next to ourselves, the oldest and the worthiest and the one that owns the best club is the Beech....