im here to fatten him up and eat him afterwards ... I saw it myself
last year; he was a mere spawn then; now he has grown big and stout on
men's food; and he has plenty of time, too, since he doesn't have to
work like another; and so he runs round and slanders poor people and
robs them of the sympathy of kind ladies like yourself."

"Stop your chattering, Goody Cray-Fish," said the reed-warbler. "You'll
drive my wife quite silly with your silly talk."

"Oh, dear!... Well, I beg a thousand pardons," said the cray-fish. "I
only want to remind the lady about the egg-shells."

Then she went backwards into her hole.

"Why will you think so much about all that rabble?" said the
reed-warbler to his wife. "There are other things in the world besides
cray-fish and eels and spiders. Find something pretty to look at. That
would do you good just now."

"Show me something," she said, languidly.

"Look at the beautiful white flower down below there," said he. "See how
charmingly he rises above the water. He surely can be neither a robber
nor a cut-throat."

It was really a beautiful white flower that grew up from the bottom of
the pond on a long, thin stalk and looked exceedingly sweet and
innocent. Mrs. Reed-Warbler glanced at him kindly:

"What's your name, you pretty flower?" she asked. "May I look at you a
little?"

"Look as much as you please," replied the flower. "My name's
Bladder-Wort, and I have no time to waste in talking to you. I have
things to attend to and must hurry."

[Illustration]

Mrs. Reed-Warbler stretched her neck and peeped down into the water.

"That horrid spider has her nest between his leaves," she said.

"Well, the bladder-wort can't help that," replied her husband. "It's a
flower's fate to stand where he stands and take things as they come. He
sucks his food calmly out of the ground, has no stains on his flowers,
and no blood on his leaves. That's what makes him so poetic and so
refined."

"Hush!" she said. "They are talking together."

And talk together they did, with a vengeance.

"Have you caught anything?" asked the bladder-wort.

"Indeed I have," replied the water-spider. "I don't go to bed fasting.
This is a good time of year for water-mites, and so I don't complain.
And how have you done?"

"Nicely, thank you," said the bladder-wort. "I have caught a hundred and
fifty midge-grubs and forty carp-spawn this afternoon. But I'm not
satisfied. I don't believe I could ever be satis