“Thank you very much,” said Kelpie; “but would you be so very kind as to tell me what is the matter with me?”
The kingfisher sat still for another moment as if in deep reflection; then he made a dart downwards into the water, dived, brought up a fish, and glided with it in his beak round a turn of the stream and disappeared.
Kelpie went at once in search of the crow. She felt that whatever came of it, she must find out what was wrong with her. After a long search she found the crow sitting on the dead branch of a hollow old oak-tree. The bones of a young rabbit, which he had been dissecting, doubtless with a scientific object, lay on the ground below. Kelpie felt very frightened when she looked at this huge black bird, with his enormous black bill, curved into a sharp hook at the end. But there was no help for it; she felt she must go through with it. As she approached, he gave a low hoarse croak.
“What do you want here?” he said.
“The kingfisher recommended you, sir,” said Kelpie, “as a—”
“The kingfisher recommended me, did he?” said the crow. “The impudence of these small practitioners! But never mind the kingfisher: pray go on, my time is limited.”
“I have been greatly troubled,” said the trembling Kelpie, “with a desire to find out—”
“I see,” said the crow decisively. “Yours is a very simple case. What did the kingfisher say about it?”
“He said I was to have change of scene, and cold water, and—”
“Exactly,” said the crow. “He’s quite wrong. You would certainly have died if you hadn’t come to me. You are suffering from a tumor inquisitivus esuriens of a very virulent kind. I can take it out for you.” And he began to sharpen his beak on the bough.