fry were as healthy and enterprising a brood of young ducks as ever
carried saucepans on the end of their noses, and they most utterly
set themselves against the doctor's prescriptions, murmured at the
muriate of fleas and the bicarbonate of frogs' toes, and took every
opportunity to waddle their little ways down to the mud and water
which was in their near vicinity. So their bills grew larger and
larger, as did the rest of their bodies, and family government grew
weaker and weaker.

"You'll wear me out, children, you certainly will," said poor Mrs.
Feathertop.

"You'll go to destruction, do ye hear?" said Master Gray Cock.

"Did you ever see such frights as poor Mrs. Feathertop has got?" said
Dame Scratchard. "I knew what would come of HER family--all
deformed, and with a dreadful sort of madness which makes them love
to shovel mud with those shocking spoon-bills of theirs."

"It's a kind of idiocy," said Goody Kertarkut. "Poor things! they
can't be kept from the water, nor made to take powders, and so they
get worse and worse."

"I understand it's affecting their feet so that they can't walk, and
a dreadful sort of net is growing between their toes. What a
shocking visitation!"

"She brought it on herself," said Dame Scratchard. "Why didn't she
come to me before she sat? She was always an upstart, self-conceited
thing; but I'm sure I pity her."