"Yes, you may well talk," said she. "How long does it last with you? Four or five weeks, I should say. But I have to go for six months with mine." "Goodness gracious! But then you can move about." "Oh," said Goody, "moving is always a rather slow matter for a cray-fish. And then you have only five eggs, ma'am, but I have two hundred." "Dear me!" said the reed-warbler. "Then your poor husband has to slave to provide food for that enormous family." "He? The monster!" replied the cray-fish. "He knows too much for that. I haven't so much as seen him since the wedding." "Then you must have a huge, big nest for all those eggs," said the wife. "It's easy to see that you don't know poor folks' circumstance, dear madam," said the cray-fish. "People of our class can't afford nests. No, I just have to drag the eggs about with me as best I may." "Where are they, then, Goody Cray-Fish?" "I carry them on my hind legs, lady. I have ten little hind legs, you see, besides my eight proper legs and my claws, which are very necessary to bite one's way through this wicked world with. And on each of my hind legs there is a heap of twenty eggs. That makes two hundred in all. I'll show them to you, if you like. The eggs are worth looking at." [Illustration] So saying, the cray-fish turned over on her back and stuck out her tail as far as she could. And there the eggs were, just as she had said, on ten little back legs. "That comes of having too many hind-legs," said the reed-warbler. "For shame! 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.