honour and a pleasure to me to stuff them till they burst. Perhaps we might have been satisfied with three."
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself!" she said.
"So I am, dear, because of the other two. But, as I don't know which two those are, it makes no difference."
She put on a very serious face. But he caught a fat fly that was passing, popped it into her mouth and struck up so pretty a trill that she fell quite in love with him again.
At that moment a deep sigh rose from the water under the bank.
"That came from a mother," said Mrs. Reed-Warbler. "I could hear that plainly."
"That's what it did," said a hoarse voice.
The Reed-Warblers peeped down and beheld a cray-fish, who sat in the mud staring with her stalked eyes.
"Dear me, is that you, Goody Cray-Fish?" said Mrs. Reed-Warbler.
"It is indeed, dear madam," said the cray-fish. "It's myself and no other. I was just sitting down here in my dirt listening to what the quality were saying. Heavens, what a good time a fine lady like you enjoys, compared with another!"
"Every one has his burden," said Mrs. Reed-Warbler. "Believe me, it's no joke sitting here and perspiring."
The cray-fish crossed her eyes and folded her antennæ.
"Yes, you may well talk," said she. "How long does it last with you? Four or five weeks, I should say. But I have to go for six months with mine."
"Goodness gracious! But then you can move about."
"Oh," said Goody, "moving is always a rather slow matter for a cray-fish. And then you have only five eggs, ma'am, but I have two hundred."
"Dear me!" said the reed-warbler. "Then your poor husband has to slave to provide food for that enormous family."
"He? The monster!" replied the cray-fish. "He knows too much for that. I haven't so much as seen him since the wedding."
"Then you must have a huge, big nest for all those eggs," said the wife.
"It's easy to see that you don't know poor folks' circumstance, dear madam," said the cray-fish. "People of our class can't afford nests. No, I just have to drag the eggs about with me as best I may."
"Where are they, then, Goody Cray-Fish?"
"I carry them on my hind legs, lady. I have ten little hind legs, you see, besides my eight proper legs and my claws, which are very necessary to bite one's way through this wicked world with. And on each of my hind legs there is a heap of twenty eggs. That makes two hundred in all. I'll show them to you, if you like. The eggs are worth looking at."
So saying, the cray-fish turned over on her back and stuck out her tail as far as she could. And there the eggs were, just as she had said, on ten little back legs.
"That comes of having too many hind-legs," said the reed-warbler.
"For shame! To poke fun at the poor woman!" said his wife.
But the cray-fish slowly turned round again and said, quietly:
"Gentlemen are always so witty. We women understand one another better. And I shouldn't so much mind about the eggs, if it wasn't that one can't change one's clothes."
"Change your clothes?" asked Mrs. Reed-Warbler.
"Yes, ma'am … you change yours too, from time to time, I know. I have seen the feathers with my own eyes, floating on the water. And it goes so easily and quickly: a feather here, a feather there and it's done. But other people, who wear a stiff shirt, have to take it all off at once. And I can't do that, you see, as long as I am carrying the eggs about. Therefore, since I have been married, I change only once a year. Now one always grows a bit stouter, even though one is but a common woman; and so I feel pretty uncomfortable sometimes, I assure you."
Mrs. Reed-Warbler was greatly touched; and her husband began to sing, for he was afraid lest all this sadness should make the eggs melancholy and spoil the children's voices.
But, at that moment, the cray-fish screamed and struck out with her claws and carried on like a mad woman.
"Look!.. Ma'am … do look!.. There comes the monster!"
Mrs. Reed-Warbler leant so far over the edge of the nest that she would have plumped into the pond if her husband had not given her a good shove. But he had no time to scold her, for he was curious himself. They both stared down into the water.
And there, as she had said, came Goody Cray-Fish's husband slowly creeping up to her backwards.
"Good-day, mother," he said. "I'm going to change."
"Oh, are you?" she screamed. "Yes, that's just like you. You can run and change at any moment while your poor lawfully-wedded wife has to go about in her old clothes. You would do better to think of me and the children."
"Why should I, mother?" he replied, calmly. "What good would it do if I thought of you? And what need have I to meddle with women's work? What must be must be. Hold your tongue now, while it lasts, for this is no joke!"
Then the reed-warblers saw how he raised himself on his tail and split across the middle of his back. Then he bent and twisted and pulled off his coat over his head.
"That's that," he said, puffing and blowing. "Now for the trousers!"
Mrs. Reed-Warbler drew back her head, but immediately peeped down again. And the cray-fish stretched and wriggled until, with a one, two, three, the shell of his tail was shed as well.
Now he was quite naked and funny to look at and talked with a very faint voice:
"Good-bye, mother," he said. "Give the young ones my love, for they will be gone, I daresay, before I come back again. I am retiring for ten days or so and shall be at home to nobody."
"You monster!" yelled Goody. "Just look at him … now he'll creep into his hole and lie there idle. In ten days' time he'll come out again, in brand-new clothes, looking most awfully arrogant." She wrung her claws and glared terribly with her stalked eyes. "I should really like to crawl into the hole after him and bite him to death," she continued. "His life isn't worth twopence in his present condition. But I loved him once. And one is and remains just a silly woman."
"Yes, Goody Cray-Fish, and then you have the children," said little Mrs. Reed-Warbler.
"That's true," she replied. "And, indeed, they are my only comfort. The dear little things, I feel as if I would love to eat them. You should just see, ma'am, how they hang on to my skirts during the first week. They are so fond of me that they simply can't leave me."
"How nice that is!" said Mrs. Reed-Warbler.
"Yes. And afterwards I have no trouble with them at all. You may believe me or not, as you please, dear lady, but, as soon as they are a week old, they go into the world and look after themselves. It's in their blood. It has never been known in the pond for a twelve-day-old cray-fish to be a burden on his family. And then you're done with them; and that may be rather sad, but, of course, it's a relief as well: two hundred children like that, in a small household! But you shall see them, ma'am, when they come … I really have to control myself in order not to eat them, they're such dears!"
"Well, I'll
