repeated the owl, severely.

But the humble-bee, who could sing but one tune, began again: "If it
please your majesty, the weasel asked me to say----"

"What?" said the king, in a terrible rage. "What did he say?"

"If it please your majesty," said the humble-bee, who must begin over
again every time he was interrupted, "the weasel asked me to say that he
sent his humble, his most humble, loyal, and devoted obedience, and
begged that you would forgive his absence from the council, as he has
just met with a severe accident in the hunting-field, and cannot put one
paw before the other."

"I do not believe it," said King Kapchack. "Where is he?"

"If it please your majesty," said the humble-bee, "he is lying on a bank
beyond the copse, stretched out in the sunshine, licking his paw, and
hoping that rest and sunshine will cure him."

"Oh, what a story!" said Bevis.

"Hush," said the squirrel.

"Somebody said it was a story," said the owl.

"So it is," said Te-te. "I have made it my business to search out the
goings-on of the weasel, who has kept himself in the background of late,
suspecting that he was up to no good, and with the aid of my lieutenant,
the tree-climber, I have succeeded in discovering his retreat, which he
has concealed even from your majesty."

"Where is it?" said Kapchack.

"It is in the elm, just there," said Te-te, "just by those raspberries."

"The rascal," said the owl, in a great fright. "Then he has been close
by all the time listening."

"Yes, he has been listening," said Te-te, meaningly.

The owl became pale, remembering the secret meeting of the birds, and
what was said there, all of which the treacherous weasel must have
overheard. He passed it off by exclaiming: "This is really intolerable".

"It _is_ intolerable," said Kapchack; "and you," addressing the
humble-bee, "wretch that you are to bring me a false message----"

"If it please your majesty," began the humble-bee, but he was seized
upon by the bee (who was always jealous of him), and the butterfly, and
the beetle, and hustled away from the precinct of the council.

"Bring the weasel here, this instant," shouted Kapchack. "Drag him here
by the ears."

Everybody stood up, but everybody hesitated, for though they all hated
the weasel they all feared him. Ki Ki, the hawk, bold as he was, could
not do much in the bushes, nor enter a hole; Kauc, the crow, was in the
like fix, and he intended if he was called upon to take