"Oh! oh! oh!" cried the Bantam.
Dab, dab, dab, pecked the cock.
"Now! has anybody else got anything to say on the subject?"
But nobody had. So he flew up on to the wall, and cried
"Cock-a-doodle-doo!"
[Illustration]
A WEEK SPENT IN A GLASS POND.
BY THE GREAT WATER-BEETLE.
Very few beetles have ever seen a Glass Pond. I once spent a week in
one, and though I think, with good management, and in society suitably
selected, it may be a comfortable home enough, I advise my
water-neighbours to be content with the pond in the wood.
The story of my brief sojourn in the Glass Pond is a story with a moral,
and it concerns two large classes of my fellow-creatures: those who live
in ponds and--those who don't. If I do not tell it, no one else will.
Those connected with it who belong to the second class (namely, Francis,
Molly, and the learned Doctor, their grandfather) will not, I am sure.
And as to the rest of us, there is none left but--
However, that is the end of my tale, not the beginning.
The beginning, as far as I am concerned, was in the Pond. It is very
difficult to describe a pond to people who cannot live under water, just
as I found it next door to impossible to make a minnow I knew believe in
dry land.
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