t his nose
that he stretches out thus upon my sugar? I have heard papa say that
there are animals, much larger than he, and which they call
elephants, I think, who take up with their noses all the food they
put in their mouths, and that they call this nose a trunk. Perhaps
this is a little person of the family of elephants."

Piccolissima had hardly uttered these words, when the fly, whose
antennae were longer than usual, and were turned towards the little
prattler, gave such a leap that Mademoiselle Tom Thumb trembled. The
wings of the insect fluttered, and made a little sharp noise, which,
however, had nothing terrible in it, and Piccolissima perceived that
her companion was laughing. It was evident that the fly must laugh
with his wings, because he could not laugh in any other way. It was
with his antennae that he had listened; they evidently served him as
ears; and, when he recovered his gravity, he flew on the little
girl's hand, and began to talk with her; then Piccolissima observed
him more intelligently.

"It appears to me, little pet," said the fly, "thou must be very
green to compare my delicate trunk, this instrument so nicely made,
with the enormous and coarse cylinder upon which, in hot weather, I
have often travelled. How can any one suppose that I have any
relationship to the deformed and gigantic monster of which you have
just now spoken?"

Piccolissima thought that the little person was not wanting in
vanity, and, while the fly was taking breath, observed that the
trunk had disappeared, and that there was no possibility of
discovering what the insect had done with it. The look, gloomy, and
a little sullen, of the fly, recalled somewhat the funny mask of a
harlequin, and Piccolissima was on the point of showing how one
laughs with the lips, by laughing in the fly's face, when the latter
forced air slightly through the breathing holes which open under the
wings; the two little double scales, the winglets, which unfold at
birth, began to vibrate; and Piccolissima, who just now remarked
that this was the method that her new acquaintance took to emit
sounds, was eager to listen to what he might say; so she made an
effort to command herself, and became serious.

"Do you not see, with your dull human intelligence, that my trunk is
a pump, a hollow tube, an instrument for sucking which I stretch out
and draw in at my pleasure?"

While speaking thus, the fly thrust half way out from the cavity in
the mid