Page:Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens (1912, Hodder & Stoughton).djvu/123

 thrushes stopped cheering, and Solomon was so perplexed that he took several sips of water.

‘Consider,’ he said at last, ‘how warm the mud makes the nest.’

‘Consider,’ cried Mrs. Finch, ‘that when water gets into the nest it remains there and your little ones are drowned.’

The thrushes begged Solomon with a look to say something crushing in reply to this, but again he was perplexed.

‘Try another drink,’ suggested Mrs. Finch pertly. Kate was her name, and all Kates are saucy.

Solomon did try another drink, and it inspired him. ‘If,’ said he, ‘a finch’s nest is placed on the Serpentine it fills and breaks to pieces, but a thrush's nest is still as dry as the cup of a swan’s back.’

How the thrushes applauded! Now they knew why they lined their nests with mud, and when Mrs. Finch called out, ‘We don't place our nests on the Serpentine,’ they did what they should have done at first—chased her from the meeting. After this it was most orderly. What they had been brought together to hear, said Solomon, was this: