The father pointed to the swans.
“Throw it to those palmipeds.”
The child hesitated. A person may not want any more of his cake; but that is no reason for giving it away.
The father went on:
“Be humane. You must have compassion on animals.”
And, taking the cake from his son, he flung it into the basin.
The cake fell very near the edge.
The swans were far away, in the centre of the basin, and busy with some prey. They had seen neither the bourgeois nor the brioche.
The bourgeois, feeling that the cake was in danger of being wasted, and moved by this useless shipwreck, entered upon a telegraphic agitation, which finally attracted the attention of the swans.
They perceived something floating, steered for the edge like ships, as they are, and slowly directed their course toward the brioche, with the stupid majesty which befits white creatures.