“Oh, don’t hurt me!” cried Tom.  “I only want to look at you; you are so handsome.”

“Ah?” said the salmon, very stately but very civilly.  “I really beg your pardon; I see what you are, my little dear.  I have met one or two creatures like you before, and found them very agreeable and well behaved.  Indeed, one of them showed me a great kindness lately, which I hope to be able to repay.  I hope we shall not be in your way here.  As soon as this lady is rested, we shall proceed on our journey.”

What a well-bred old salmon he was!

“So you have seen things like me before?” asked Tom.

“Several times, my dear.  Indeed, it was only last night that one at the river’s mouth came and warned me and my wife of some new stake-nets which had got into the stream, I cannot tell how, since last winter, and showed us the way round them, in the most charmingly obliging way.”

“So there are babies in the sea?” cried Tom, and clapped his little hands.  “Then I shall have some one to play with there?  How delightful!”

“Were there no babies up this stream?” asked the lady salmon.

“No! and I grew so lonely.  I thought I saw three last night; but they were gone in an instant, down to the sea.  So I went, too; for I had nothing to play with but caddises and dragon flies and trout,”

“Ugh!” cried the lady, “what low company!”

“My dear, if he has been in low company, he has certainly not learnt their low manners,” said the salmon.

“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, every one 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. [Footnote:  Alcibiades was a particularly handsome and particularly proud Greek, who lived in the time of the great wars between the two Greek states of Athens and Sparta.  He took part in these wars, first on the side of Athens, then on the side of Sparta, and finally succeeded in gaining the hatred of both states by his treachery and unscrupulousness.  He went into exile, but was finally put to death by the Persians at the command of the Athenians and Spartans (404 B. C.)]

“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.”