me! 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."

[Illustration]

"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