And a shoal of other little fishes put their heads
out, and laughed at Mr. Jeremy Fisher.
And while Mr. Jeremy sat disconsolately on the edge
of his boat—sucking his sore fingers and
peering down into the water—a much
worse thing happened; a really frightful thing
it would have been, if Mr. Jeremy had not been wearing
a macintosh!
A great big enormous trout came up—ker-pflop-p-p-p!
with a splash—and it seized Mr. Jeremy
with a snap, “Ow! Ow! Ow!”—and
then it turned and dived down to the bottom of the
pond!
But the trout was so displeased with the taste of
the macintosh, that in less than half a minute it
spat him out again; and the only thing it swallowed
was Mr. Jeremy’s goloshes.
Mr. Jeremy bounced up to the surface of the water,
like a cork and the bubbles out of a soda water bottle;
and he swam with all his might to the edge of the
pond.
He scrambled out on the first bank he came to, and
he hopped home across the meadow with his macintosh
all in tatters.
“What a mercy that was not a pike!” said
Mr. Jeremy Fisher. “I have lost my rod
and basket; but it does not much matter, for I am sure
I should never have dared to go fishing again!”
He put some sticking plaster on his fingers, and his
friends both came to dinner. He could not offer
them fish, but he had something else in his larder.
Sir Isaac Newton wore his black and gold waistcoat,
And Mr. Alderman Ptolemy Tortoise brought a salad
with him in a string bag.
And instead of a nice dish of minnows—they
had a roasted grasshopper with lady-bird sauce; which
frogs consider a beautiful treat; but I think
it must have been nasty!
