"There!" she cried, "what's the good of expecting a just reward? And yet I ask the whole world—Whose work is the finer, mine or that Merchant's?"
"Yours, to be sure," answered the Bee. "Who would venture to deny the fact? Every one knew that long ago. But what is the good of it if there's neither warmth nor wear in it?"
The Cuckoo and the Cock
"How proudly and sonorously you sing, my dear Cock!"
"But you, dear Cuckoo, my light, how smoothly flows your long drawn-out note! There is no such singer in all the rest of our forest."
"To you, dear friend, I could listen forever."
"And as for you, my beauty, I protest that when you are silent I scarcely know how to wait till you begin again. Where do you get such a voice?—so clear, so soft, so high! But no doubt you were always like that: not very large in stature, but in song—a nightingale."
"Thanks, friend. As for you, I declare on my conscience you sing better than the birds in the Garden of Eden. I appeal to public opinion for a proof of this."
At this moment a Sparrow, who had overheard their conversation, said to them:
"You may go on praising each other till you are hoarse, my friends; but your music is utterly worthless."