Deesum hugged the mousebabe closer to her as she rounded on Florian. “You callous monster! Fancy frightening the poor little fellow like that!”

Florian flung his hat down and danced upon it. “Madam, I’ll have y’know that wretch shot me in the posterior, an’ called me a rabbit t’boot!”

Deesum stamped her paw hard. “Enough! One more word, sir, and I’ll resign from your troupe and take baby Dwopple with me!”

Roop, the mole in the spangled bloomers, shook his head dolefully, grumbling in his curious molespeech. “Hurr, no such lukk oi doan’t surpose, burr no.”

Muggle, the other mole, gathered up a pail and trundled toward the stream. She wrinkled her velvety snout at her companions. “Ee can stan’ yurr arguin’ all day. Oi’m goin’ to get brekkist vittles readied. Bain’t goin’ to wurr moi jaws out a-shouten.”

Florian, who liked to issue all the orders, coughed officiously. “Ahem, rather! Just what I was about to suggest m’self. Right, troupe, breakfast. Elachim, get a fire goin’. Runktipp, see to the larder, the rest of you make y’selves busy, wot. Quick’s the word an’ sharp’s the action, wot wot!”

Runktipp spread the meager rations on the bankside where Muggle was boiling water over the small fire Elachim had kindled. The hedgehog scratched his head spikes. “Ain’t enough grub left t’keep a fat bumblebee goin’.”

Deesum glanced at the two shriveled apples, dandelion stalks, a stale loaf of ryebread which had crumbled into pieces and some half a dozen withered field mushrooms. “Oh, seasons of mercy on us, the babe will starve!”

Ever the optimist, Florian began chopping the scanty provisions up and tossing them into the pail of bubbling water. “Nonsense, marm. Fiddlesticks! Nature’s bounty has provided us with sufficient food for a nourishin’ broth. Let’s all eat hearty an’ look forward to better, more prosperous times, wot!”

The soup was dreadful, but knowing there was nothing else the Wandering Noonvale Companions spooned it down in stoic silence, until Runktipp began eulogizing on past dishes he had eaten, as hungry hedgehogs will invariably do. “Crispy ’ot white bread, straight out o’ the oven, that’s the stuff. Goes down a treat with some good yellow nutcheese an’ young onions fresh picked, all washed down with a foamy beaker of dark ale. Hoho! A feast fit fer a king, I say!”

Borrakul the otter closed his eyes dreamily.

“Pipin’ ’ot scones, matey, spread wid meadowcream an’ served wid fat juicy strawberries coated in honey, with a flagon of cold cider, o’ course. Now, that’s a feast fit fer a king!”

Roop picked something dubious out of his soup bowl, wrinkling his nose as he flicked the offending item into the stream. “Burr aye, well, seein’ as ’ow you’m two bain’t kings, whoi doan’t ee use yore mouths furr eatin’ an’ not makin’ us’n’s ’ungrier?”