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But Flutethroat could not wake up just then, for he was enjoying a most delightful dream: he was living in a country where there were no cats, nor any other living things but slugs, snails, and grubs; while all kinds of fruit grew in profusion, so that there was no difficulty in obtaining any amount of food; but one great drawback to his happiness was an ugly, misshapen little bird, which would keep running after him, and crying, "Peedle-weedle-wee, peedle-weedle-wee," or else shouting at him to "wake up."
"Peedle-weedle-wee, peedle-weedle-wee," cried a row of little long-tailed birds, so small that they looked like little balls of feathers, with tiny black eyes and a black beak so small that it was hardly worth calling a beak at all stuck at one point, and a thin tail at the other extreme.
The noise that Mrs Flutethroat complained of proceeded from the low branches of a large fir-tree; and as the good dame listened the sounds came again louder than ever, "Peedle-weedle-wee, peedle-weedle-wee," in a small, thready, pipy tone, as though the birds who uttered the cry had had their voices split up into two or three pieces.
Tchink-tchink-tchink," she cried, trying to fright them; but still they kept on "Peedle-weedle-wee, peedle-weedle-wee" worse than ever; and, as it grew dark, it actually appeared as though they were coming nearer to the nest. "There," she exclaimed at last, "I can't stand this any longer!
"Peedle-weedle-wee, peedle-weedle-wee," said the bottle-tits as busy as ever, trying to get the warmest spot. "There they go again," said Mrs Flutethroat; "why don't you go somewhere else, and not make that noise there?" "Peedle-weedle-wee, peedle-weedle-wee," said the bottle-tits.
Then the next two did the same, and the next, and the next, until they all had done the same thing, when they began again; and all the while that wretched, querulous piping "peedle-weedle-wee" kept on, till Mrs Flutethroat grew so angry, and annoyed and irritable, that she felt as though she could have thrown one of her eggs at the tiresome little intruders on the peace of the garden.
"Wake up, wake up," cried the voice. "Get along with you, do," said Flutethroat. "Peedle-weedle-wee, peedle-weedle-wee," cried the voice again.
"Peedle-weedle-wee, peedle-weedle-wee," they kept crying, which meant, "Let me come inside where it's warm;" and as they kept on whining the same cry, the outside birds kept flitting over the backs of those next to them, and trying to get a middle place.
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