once or twice, as if he were swallowing something
unpleasant. And he looked most surprised.

"Why, that's exactly wrong!" he cried.

"Is that so?" Grandaddy Beaver quavered. "Then I must have made a
mistake. You know I'm a _leetle_ hard of hearing."

"Never mind!" Ferdinand Frog answered, for he always took his troubles
lightly. "Bring 'em when you come to have your clothes fitted and it'll
be all right."

So he worked on. But by and by he began to grow uneasy again. And now
and then he paused and went to the window, where he peered somewhat
anxiously at the Beavers who waited before his door in a long line.

"It's queer!" Mr. Frog exclaimed aloud at last. "Here I've been
measuring 'em for an hour and a half; and there's just as many of 'em
left. . . . I'll have to stop soon," he continued, "for I'm going to
a singing-party to-night. And I don't want to be late."

His customers, however, wouldn't hear of his leaving. The moment Mr.
Frog's remarks passed down the line, the Beaver family began to jostle
and push one another. They crowded inside the tailor's shop.

And to get rid of them, Mr. Frog worked faster than ever. So great was
his haste that he measured everybody wrong; whereas before he had
measured them correctly, while merely scratching wrong figures upon the
stones.

And finally he stopped suddenly. As Grandaddy Beaver stepped forward to
be measured for the fourth time it dawned upon Mr. Frog that he had
measured him several times already.

But Ferdinand Frog said nothing at all.

Holding one end of his tape in his mouth, he passed the other end
around Grandaddy's plump body.

All at once a cry of dismay came from the customers who were looking on
while they waited.

"He's swallowing the tape!" they cried, pointing to Mr. Frog.

It was true. Beneath their horrified gaze the tape-measure disappeared
little by little inside Mr. Frog's mouth. And before any of them could
come to his senses and seize the end of the yellow strip, it had
vanished from view completely.

Of course they saw that the tailor could work no longer that evening. So
they filed sadly out of the shop.

"How did it happen?" they asked Mr. Frog, who was already locking his
door.

"The tape stuck to my tongue," he explained. "Everything does, you
know. But it doesn't matter, because I was hungry. And now I feel
better."

So Mr. Frog reached the singing-party in time, after all.

XIV

AN UNPLEASANT MIX-UP

For a