No one has been able to deduce a meaning from this work, but some have suggested that it alludes to a time after a war, when children of the vanquished were used as a medium of exchange, and they were aware of it, and none too happy about it, either. Others have ascribed the child's expression to the realization that he was going to a house full of women and aunts and sisters and nurses, and would no longer be allowed to play with guns, or keep the goldfish awake for hours with a flashlight in a dark room, barking out questions and demanding the names of the goldfish's accomplices.