leasure," replied the mussel. "I am fond of a gossip in the
evening myself. And no one will believe that I have had any experience,
because I move about so little.... But wait a bit. There's a saucy
person there I want a word with...."

It was no other than Goody Cray-Fish.

She had crawled nearer and was fumbling at the mussel with her legs. Now
he slammed his shell down upon one of them and cut it off in the middle.
Goody screamed like one possessed and hammered away at the mussel with
her claws, but he only laughed.

[Illustration: 'HE SLAMMED HIS SHELL DOWN']

"What a common fellow!" cried Goody. "Can't he leave a respectable woman
alone?"

"Aye," said the mussel, "when she doesn't go for me!"

"A wretched mussel like that!" she screamed. "A mollusc! He is much
lower in rank than I and he dares to be impertinent. I have twenty-one
pairs of legs and he knows it: how many has he?"

"Come along, with all the one-and-twenty!" said the mussel.

Goody went on scolding and then the reed-warbler interfered:

"Drop that strong language now," he said. "It doesn't matter about those
legs. I have only two myself."

"I should be sorry to be found lacking in respect for you, Mr.
Reed-Warbler," said the cray-fish. "I know who are my betters, right
enough. But I can't understand how a fine gentleman like you can care to
talk to one of those molluscs."

Scolding and grumbling, she withdrew to her hole, but left her head and
claws hanging outside. The mussel opened his shell, but kept four or
five of his eyes constantly fixed on Goody. These eyes were on the edge
of the mantle which lay in the slit between the shells. As soon as the
cray-fish made the slightest movement, he closed his shells at once:

"One's soft inside all right," he said. "But one shows the hard shell to
the world."

"Go on with your story," said the reed-warbler.

"I was born in another pond, far from here," said the mussel. "I can't
give you a detailed description of it, because, as you will understand,
one in my position does not have many opportunities of looking about
him. It was not as grand as in the high-class carp-pond, that's sure
enough. To be honest with you, I think it was much the same as here--an
awful heap of rabble of every kind, but lots of mussels in particular.
They sat in the mud as close as paving-stones and took the bread out of
one another's mouths. If you had a mouthful of water, it was generally
mere swipes. Some one else