, they did.

But Ferdinand Frog told the crowd that it was only because they weren't
used to being dressed in that fashion. He said he certainly was pleased
with their appearance and that he had never seen any company that looked
the least bit like them.

There was one Beaver, however, who shouted angrily that he knew his
suit wasn't fashionable and that he wouldn't accept it.

XV

EVERYONE IS HAPPY

Mr. Frog led the angry Beaver around to the front of his shop, while the
others followed, and pointed to his sign.

"There!" he said. "Don't you see that I _claim_ to be an unfashionable
tailor? You'll have to keep that suit, and pay me for it, too. And so
will everybody else."

But the whole Beaver family cried out that they objected. "No one ever
pays his tailor," they told Mr. Frog. "It's not the fashionable thing to
do."

Even then Ferdinand Frog continued to smile at them. He was such an
agreeable chap!

"I know it's not fashionable now," he admitted, "but it will be five
years from now. And since it's my way to collect on delivery, I'll thank
you to step up one at a time and pay me. . . . And please don't crowd!"
he added.

There was really no need of that last warning, because nobody made a
move.

Mr. Frog, however, was not dismayed. He leaped suddenly into the air and
alighted directly in front of a Beaver known among his friends as Stingy
Steve--the very one to whom Mr. Frog had just shown his sign.

"Pay up, please!" Ferdinand Frog said.

"How much do I owe you?" the uneasy Beaver asked him.

"Sixty!" Mr. Frog told him, with a grin.

Stingy Steve thrust his hand inside the pocket of his new trousers,
from which he slowly drew one of Mr. Frog's tape-measures--of which the
tailor had at least a dozen. Mr. Frog was always tucking them away in
odd places.

"Here!" Stingy Steve cried. "Here's your pay--sixty inches, neither more
nor less!"

But Ferdinand Frog only laughed and told him that he didn't mean
_inches_. That, he explained, was no pay at all.

"I know," Stingy Steve replied. "I know it's not the fashionable way to
pay a bill at present. But it will be five years from now. And what's
more, you can't prove that what I say isn't true."

For a few moments Mr. Frog stood there gasping. And pretty soon he
noticed that his customers were all busily picking up chips and sticks
and pebbles. At first he thought they were going to throw them at him;
and he was all ready to jump.

But