"Quick, quack, quock, quirk!"
Quite contented, Quentin frog hops out of a quagmire.
His living quarters are in the squelchy mud of the pond. He lives there with his wife Querilla and his children, the squiggly tadpoles.
It's a pleasure to listen to these eloquent frogs. They quok-quok-quok all day long.
What they do best is sing in a quartet. Quentin quivers as he sings the low notes, quoaark, quoaark, quoaark, Querilla is the queen of the quick high quavers and the children all squeak like little pigs.
Not all of their neighbours like this music. There are a few querulous quibblers – the water rats are always picking a quarrel with it. They're not very musical – they don't know quality when they hear it.
"How many tadpoles do you have?", enquires their neighbour, the newt.
"Quok, there's such a quantity of them that I'm not quite sure myself. There are less whenever some of them make the acquaintance of a stork", Quentin answers. "But Querilla and I always seem to acquire more tadpoles, quite a production line, quoaark, quoaark, quoaark . . ."
Once again, Zettelwitz has spied a quarry . . .
"That's quite enough squalling, you chatterbox! Your quoaark, quoaark, quoaark nonsense is disturbing my tranquillity, and I'll soon quench it",
cries Zettelwitz. "I'll soon be quits with you!"