Circular Saws

LISTEN. This is quite a new story. It is about a swan that wished he was an ugly duckling again. He was one of those two swans who stand at the edge of the Round Pond, have black feet and holes to put tape through in their beaks. Only they won’t let you put tape through.

What he said was (quite simply), “Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.” To which his mate said, “Then why do you always eat more than your share?” But the other swan was an idealist and took no notice.

He summoned a public meeting of the ducks after closing-time, and having elected himself to the chair after rather a protracted argument with a pertinacious old drake, told his audience that he was a duck at heart. “What is beauty,” he went on to say, “that it should put one on a lonely eminence. The exquisite shape of the swan, his girl-like neck, what right to rule do these confer?” “None,” said the old drake, heartily. “Did you say beauty?” said a young female duck, bridling her feathers. “Why you poor old antic, if you knew how we ducks sympathised with you on your deformity!”

But this was a little too much for the swan. “I did not come here to be insulted,” he said hotly, “by a brood of blasphemous pond-puddlers. Are you aware that the Great Swan made swans in his image?” “And are you aware,” said the old drake, “that the swans retorted by making him in theirs?”

“Well,” said his mate to the rather draggled swan who returned about midnight, “how did you get on?” “Get on,” he screamed, “those ducks think that equality means that I’m equal with them.” “And doesn’t it?” “Certainly not,” said the swan, tucking his head under his wings, “it means that they’re equal with me.” “And what’s more,” he said with sudden truculence as he emerged for a moment, “a swan’s a swan for a’ that.”