"I've told you, I've told you, I've told you, in Treve woods where I lived, very far from here on the other side of Lostwithiel."
"Treve woods, between the hills away beyond Lostwithiel! Why, squirrel, that's where I lived."
"So I've heard; you have said it every day and every night these seventeen years. I hate you."
"Hullo! Why do you hate me?"
"I always disliked woodpeckers. I remember a pair that made a hole in a beech near the tree my drey was in. I played those two yafflers with their laugh laugh laugh some good tricks, and the best of all was when their young began to come out. One morning when the old birds were away I hid myself in the fork above the hole and waited till they crept out and up close to me, when I suddenly burst out upon them, chattering and flourishing my tail, and they were so terrified they actually lost their hold on the bark and tumbled right down to the ground. How I enjoyed it!"
"You malicious little red beast! You chattering little red devil! They were my young ones, and I remember what a fright we were in when we came back and saw what had happened. It was lucky we didn't lose one! I shall never speak to you again. There you may sit trying to eat your nut for another seventeen years, and for a hundred years if this horrible life is going to last so long, but you'll never get another word from me."
"I thought that would touch you, woodpecker! Ha, ha, ha—who's the yaffler now? What a relief; at last I shall be left to eat my nut in peace and quiet, here in this glass case where they put me."
"Why did they put us here?"
"You are speaking to me! Are the hundred years over so soon?"
"There's no one else—what am I to do? Answer me, why did they put us here? Answer me, little red wretch! I don't mind now what you did—they were not hurt after all. You didn't know what you were doing—you had no young ones of your own."