"Gaston."
"Where does he live?"
"Well, he used to live in this peach seed, but now that the peach has been harvested and sold, and I have eaten half of it, it looks as if he's out of house and home."
"Aren't you going to squash him?"
"No, of course not, why should I?"
"He is a bug. He is ugh."
"Not at all. He is Gaston the grand boulevardier."
"Everybody hollers when a bug comes out of an apple, but you don't holler or anything."
"Of course not. How should we like it if somebody hollered every time we came out of our house?"
"Why would they?"
"Precisely. So why should we holler at Gaston?"
"He is not the same as us."
"Well, not exactly, but he's the same as a lot of other occupants of peach seeds. Now, the poor fellow hasn't got a home, and there he is with all that pure design and handsome form, and nowhere to go."
"Handsome?"
"Gaston is just about the handsomest of his kind I've ever seen."
"What's he saying?"
"Well, he's a little confused. Now, inside that house of his he had everything in order. Bed here, porch there, and so forth."
"Show me."
The man picked up the peach, leaving Gaston entirely alone on the white plate. He removed the peeling and ate the rest of the peach.
"Nobody else I know would do that," the girl said. "They'd throw it away."
"I can't imagine why. It's a perfect good peach."
He opened the seed and placed the two sides not far from Gaston. The girl studied the open halves.
"Is that where he lives?"
"It's where he used to live. Gaston is out in the world and on his own now. You can see for yourself how comfortable he was in there. He had everything."
"Now what has he got?"
"Not very much, I'm afraid."
"What's he going to do?"
"What are we going to do?"
"Well, we're not going to squash him, that's one thing we're not going to do," the girl said.
"What are we going to do, then?"
"Put him back?"
"Oh, that house is finished."
"Well, he can't live in our house, can he?"
"Not happily."
"Can he live in our house at all?"
"Well, he could try, I suppose. Don't you want to eat a peach?"
"Only if it's a peach with somebody in the seed. "
"Well, see if you can find a peach that has an opening at the top, because if you can, that'll be a peach in which you're likeliest to find somebody."
The girl examined each of the peaches on the big plate.
"They're all shut," she said.
"Well, eat one, then."
"No. I want the same kind that you ate, with somebody in the seed."