"Have they?" said Carrots. Then he sat silent for a few minutes, finding this new idea rather overwhelming. "Naughty people, do you mean, Floss?" he inquired at last.
"Yes," said Floss, unhesitatingly, "naughty people, of course."
"But I don't like killing," said Carrots, "not killing naughty people, I don't like. I won't be a soldier, and I won't be a sailor, and I won't be a butcher, 'cos butchers kill lambs. Perhaps I'll be a fisherman."
"But fishermen kill fish," said Floss.
"Do they?" said Carrots, looking up in her face pathetically with his gentle brown eyes. "I'm so sorry. I don't understand about killing, Floss. I don't like it."
"I don't either," said Floss; "but perhaps it has to be. If there was no killing we'd have nothing to eat."
"Eggs," said Carrots; "eggs and potatoes, and—and—cake?"
"But even that would be a sort of killing," persisted Floss, though feeling by no means sure that she was not getting beyond her depth, "if we didn't eat eggs they would grow into chickens, and so eating stops them; and potatoes have roots, and when they're pulled up they don't grow; and cake has eggs in, and—oh I don't know, let's talk of something else."
"What?" said Carrots, "Fairies?"
"If you like, or supposing we talk about when auntie comes and brings 'Sybil.'"