"I wean't laugh at you no more, Mester Dick.

I like you for it, lad.

It do seem cruel; and sometimes when I weer younger, and a bud looked up at me with its pretty eyes, as much as to say, `don't kill me!' I would let it go." "Ah!" ejaculated Dick with a sigh of relief.
"But what did that bud do, lad?
If it was a piewipe, go and kill hundreds o' worms, and snails, and young frogs; if it was a heron, spear fish and pick the wriggling young eels out of the mud.

No, lad, it wean't do; buds is the cruellest things there is, pretty as they are-- all except them as only eats seeds.

Everything 'most is cruel; but if they wasn't the world would get so full that everything would starve.
We've got say fourscore pie-wipes--not for fun, but for wittles--and what's fourscore when there's thousands upon thousands all about ?" "Why, Dave, you're a philosopher!" said Dick, who felt relieved.
"Yes," said Dave complacently, but with a very foggy idea of the meaning of the word; "it's being out so much upon the water.