. And as for cruelty, why,
he killed his uncle only a week since, just for not answering him the
very instant he spoke; he pecked him in the forehead and killed him.
Then he killed the poor little wren, whom he chanced to hear say that
the king was not so beautiful as her husband. Next he pecked a thrush to
death, because the thrush dared to come into his orchard without
special permission.

"But it is no use my trying to tell you all the shameful things he has
done in all these years. There is never a year goes by without his doing
something dreadful; and he has made everybody miserable at one time or
other by killing their friends or relations, from the snail to the
partridge. He is quite merciless, and spares no one; why, his own
children are afraid of him, and it is believed that he has pecked
several of them to death, though it is hushed up; but people talk about
it all the same, sometimes. As for the way he has behaved to the ladies,
if I were to tell you you would never believe it."

"I hate him," said Bevis. "Why ever do they let him be king? How they
must hate him."

"Oh, no, they don't, dear," said the toad. "If you were to hear how they
go on, you would think he was the nicest and kindest person that ever
existed. They sing his praises all day long; that is, in the spring and
summer, while the birds have their voices. You must have heard them,
only you did not understand them. The finches and the thrushes, and the
yellow-hammers and the wrens, and all the birds, every one of them,
except Choo Hoo, the great rebel, sing Kapchack's praises all day long,
and tell him that they love him more than they love their eggs, or their
wives, or their nests, and that he is the very best and nicest of all,
and that he never did anything wrong, but is always right and always
just.

"And they say his eye is brighter than the sun, and that he can see more
with his one eye than all the other birds put together; and that his
feathers are blacker and whiter and more beautiful than anything else in
the world, and his voice sweeter than the nightingale's. Now, if you
will stoop a little lower I will whisper to you the reason they do this
(Bevis stooped down close); the truth is they are afraid lest he should
come himself and peck their eggs, or their children, or their wives, or
if not himself that he should send the hawk, or the weasel, or the
stoat, or the rat, or the crow. Don't you ever listen to the crow,
Bevis; he is a