"What little fellows do you mean?"
"The canker-worms."
"How many are there?"
"About twenty-five decillions, I should think, as near as I can count."
"Why! what are they for? What good do they do?"
"Oh! no end. Keep the children from eating green apples and getting sick."
"How do they do that?"
"Eat 'em themselves."
A frightful idea dawned upon me. I believe I turned a kind of ghastly blue.
"Halicarnassus, do you mean to tell me that the canker-worms are eating up our apples and that we shan't have any?"