Now you begin to see what a deal of truth there was in what old Granny Grunt said, and what a wicked and ungrateful duckling this was, to have such evil thoughts, pretending to be so fond of the little granddaughter all the time. It was quite as bad as if a naughty child, after having as many "goodies" given it as it could eat, made fun of the giver behind the back, while before the face it pretended to be all love, and honey, and sugar. It's deceit, that's what it is, done for what may be got; and if anything, deceit's worse than story-telling, as you pretend to be what you are not, and to feel what you do not, while a story once told is done with, if you don't tell another on the top of it, and have the honesty to confess it was a story when close questioned and you speak the truth. But deceit! it's so dreadfully shocking! it's hypocrisy, and I know not what besides, as you have to keep it up, wear a mask, seem what you are not. O, dear! O, dear! I can't say how bad it is, it's so very bad.
Now the Greedy Duckling knew which way the granddaughter came, and used to watch and wait for her, often a good way from the others, when she was coming with food; and if the little girl in the drawn and magenta-colored bonnet happened to be with her, she would say, "Look at the dear little duckling! Though it's so fat it can hardly waddle, it couldn't stop till I came, but is so fond of me it's come to meet me!" Then she began to feed it, giving it as much as ever it could eat, while the other dear ducklings, that were waiting so patiently by the brook, hadn't even so much as a smell, until that nasty, greedy little wretch had been crammed full to the very throat. Let us hope he was often troubled with a touch of the bile as a just punishment for his greediness. He was now so fat that he used to fall asleep on the water, and the wind blew him on like a floating feather, while his little brothers and sisters were diving, and swimming, and playing, and splashing about, and having such jolly games as made one quite wish to join them on a hot summer's day. This was the first judgment that overtook him for his greediness: he was too fat to play, and if he tried, puffed and blew like a broken-winded horse, and was out of breath in no time; for his liver was not only out of order, but what little heart he had, and that wasn't much, was buried in fat.
He now took to eating out of spite, so that there might be next to nothing left for the other little ducklings. Whether he was hungry or not, he would stand in the centre of the food that was thrown down, and though he couldn't eat it himself, bite and fly at every duckling that attempted to touch a morsel. One of his little brothers one day went at him, and gave him "pepper," I can tell you; and when he found he'd met his match, what did the fat, artful wretch do but throw himself on his back, quacking out, "You ain't a-going to hit me when I'm down?"
Now, selfish and greedy although he was, and disliked by the rest of the family, he had a little sister,—which was, that dear duckling you see swimming at the front of its mother, as if asking her if it may go out of the water for a little time, and have a waddle on the grass, for it is a most dutiful duckling,—and this little sister was the only one of the family that treated the Greedy Duckling kindly, for she used to say, "Bad as he is, he's my brother, and it's my duty to bear with him." After a time, when, on account of his selfishness and greediness, the rest of the family had "sent him to Coventry," which means that they wouldn't have anything to do with him,—neither eat, drink, nor swim with him, nor even exchange so much as a friendly "quack,"—then it was that he began to appreciate the kindness and self-sacrifice of his little sister, who would go and sit with him for the hour together, though he was too sulky at first even to "quack" to her.
It so happened one day, when his pretty little sister had been talking to him, and telling him how much happier his life would be if he were more social, and how greatly his health would be improved if he ate less, that after saying, "I don't care if they won't have me amongst 'em; little Sukey gives me plenty to eat, and I can sleep well enough by myself, and much better than if they were all quacking about me; and though you come and stay with me, I don't ask you, nor I don't want you; and I dare say you only do it to please yourself, and——," before he could say another word, his little sister said, "Run, run!" for she had seen a shadow on the grass, and knew that a great hawk was hanging over them; and they had only just time to pop under the long, trailing canes of a bramble, before down the hawk came with such a sweep, that they could feel the cold wind raised by the flapping of his great wings, though he could not reach them for the bramble; nor did he try to get at them where they were sheltered, for the hawk only strikes his prey while on the wing, picking it up and keeping hold of it somehow, just as Betty does a lump of coal, which she has made a snap at, and seized with the tongs.
"He would have been sure to have had you," said the little sister, after the hawk had flown away over the trees, "as you stood the farthest out, and are so fat; and I was so near the bramble, he would hardly have had room for the full spread of his wings, if he had made a snap at me."
"I don't see that," replied the Greedy Duckling, "for as I'm so heavy, I think he would have been glad to have dropped me before he had reached his nest; while as for you, you're such a light bit of a thing, he would have carried you off as easily almost as he would a fly that had settled on his back."
"But supposing he had dropped you after flying with you about six times the height of a tall tree; what use would you have been after you had fallen?" asked the little duckling. "Why, there would have been neither make nor shape in you, but you would have looked like a small handful of feathers somebody had thrown down on the place where oil had been spilt. Our dear old mother would not have known you, for you would no more have looked like what you are now, than a snail that a wagon wheel had gone over did before it was crushed, when he was travelling comfortably along the rut, and carrying his sharp-pointed house on his back."
"Well, as I don't care much about my shape now, I suppose the thought of it would have troubled me less after I'd been killed," said the Greedy Duckling; "all I care for in this life is to have as much to eat as I can tuck under my wings, and not to have any noise about me while I'm asleep. As to washing myself much, that's a trouble, though I do manage to give my head a dip when I have a drink. There was an old man used to come and sit under the tree beside our brook, and read poetry; and sometimes, between sleeping and waking, I used to pick up a line or two; and I liked those best of all that said,—
'I just do nothing all the day,
And soundly sleep the night away,'—