You will only get yourselves all muddy.

Besides, you can't catch any fishes to put into it, and if you do, they won't live.

And then the grass is so thick that you could not get it up to make your hole." But William says that they can dig the grass up with their little spades.
They had tried it, and found that they could do so.
And James says that they have already tried catching the fishes, and found that they could do it by means of a long-handled dipper; and Lucy says that they will all be very careful not to get themselves wet and muddy.
"But you'll get your feet wet standing on the edge of the brook," says the mother.

"You can't help it." "No, mother," replies James, "there is a large flat stone that we can stand upon, and so keep our feet perfectly dry.

See!" So saying, he shows his own feet, which are quite dry.
Thus the discussion goes on; the objections made--being, as usual in such cases, half of them imaginary ones, brought forward only for effect--are one after another disposed of, or at least set aside, until at length the mother, as if beaten off her ground after a contest, gives a reluctant and hesitating consent, and the children go away to commence their work only half pleased, and separated in heart and affection, for the time being, from their mother by not finding in her, as they think, any sympathy with them, or disposition to aid them in their pleasures.
They have, however, by their mother's management of the case, received an excellent lesson in arguing and teasing.