'"How well you talk!" said the
Miller's Wife, pouring herself out a large glass of warm ale; "really I
feel quite drowsy. It is just like being in church."
"Lots of people act well,"
answered the Miller; "but very few people talk well, which shows that
talking is much the more difficult thing of the two, and much the finer thing
also;" and he looked sternly across the table at his little son, who felt
so ashamed of himself that he hung his head down, and grew quite scarlet, and
began to cry into his tea. However, he was so young that you must excuse him.'
'Is that the end of the story?' asked the
Water-rat.
'Certainly not,' answered the Linnet,
that is the beginning.
'Then you are quite behind the age,' said
the Water-rat. 'Every good story-teller nowadays starts with the end, and then
goes on to the beginning, and concludes with the middle. That is the new
method. I heard all about it the other day from a critic who was walking round
the pond with a young man. He spoke of the matter at great length, and I am
sure he must have been right, for he had blue spectacles and a bald head, and
whenever the young man made any remark, he always answered "Pooh!"
But pray go on with your story. I like the Miller immensely. I have all kinds
of beautiful sentiments myself, so there is a great sympathy between us.
'Well,' said the Linnet, hopping now on
one leg and now on the other, 'as soon as the winter was over, and the
primroses began to open their pale yellow stars, the Miller said to his wife
that he would go down and see little Hans.
'"Why, what a good heart you
have!" cried his wife; "you are always thinking of others. And mind
you take the big basket with you for the flowers."
'So the Miller tied the sails of the
windmill together with a strong iron chain, and went down the hill with the
basket on his arm.
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