THE WATER BABIES
"No, indeed, poor little dear: but how sad for him to live among such people as caddises, who have actually six legs, the nasty things; and dragon-flies, too! why they are not even good to eat; for I tried them once, and they are all hard and empty; and, as for trout, everyone knows what they are." Whereon she curled up her lip, and looked dreadfully scornful, while her husband curled up his, too, till he looked as proud as Alcibiades.
"Why do you dislike the trout so?" asked Tom.
"My dear, we do not even mention them if we can help it; for I am sorry to say they are relations of ours who do us no credit. A great many years ago they were just like us: but they were so lazy, and cowardly, and greedy, that instead of going down to the sea every year to see the world and grow strong and fat, they chose to stay and poke about in the little streams and eat worms and grubs; and they are very properly punished for it; for they have grown ugly, and brown, and spotted, and small; and are actually so degraded in their tastes, that they will eat our children."
"And then they pretend to scrape acquaintance with us again," said the lady. "Why I have actually known one of them propose to a lady salmon, the impudent little creature."
"I should hope," said the gentleman, "that there are very few ladies of our race who would degrade themselves by listening to such a creature for an instant.
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