things?"

The children, having the instinct that he had not asked them, but
himself, came closer. He had in his hand a little beetle.

"This beetle lives in rotten wood; nice chap, isn't he?"

"We kill beetles; we're afraid of them." So Susie.

They were now round Tod so close that Billy was standing on one of his
large feet, Susie leaning her elbows on one of his broad knees, and
Biddy's slender little body pressed against his huge arm.

"No," said Tod; "beetles are nice chaps."

"The birds eats them," remarked Billy.

"This beetle," said Tod, "eats wood. It eats through trees and the trees
get rotten."

Biddy spoke:

"Then they don't give no more apples." Tod put the beetle down and Billy
got off his foot to tread on it. When he had done his best the beetle
emerged and vanished in the grass. Tod, who had offered no remonstrance,
stretched out his hand and replaced Billy on his foot.

"What about my treading on you, Billy?" he said.

"Why?"

"I'm big and you're little."

On Billy's square face came a puzzled defiance. If he had not been early
taught his station he would evidently have found some poignant retort.
An intoxicated humblebee broke the silence by buzzing into Biddy's
fluffed-out, corn-gold hair. Tod took it off with his hand.

"Lovely chap, isn't he?"

The children, who had recoiled, drew close again, while the drunken bee
crawled feebly in the cage of Tod's large hand.

"Bees sting," said Biddy; "I fell on a bee and it stang me!"

"You stang it first," said Tod. "This chap wouldn't sting--not for
worlds. Stroke it!"

Biddy put out her little, pale finger but stayed it a couple of inches
from the bee.

"Go on," said Tod.

Opening her mouth a little, Biddy went on and touched the bee.

"It's soft," she said. "Why don't it buzz?"

"I want to stroke it, too," said Susie. And Billy stamped a little on
Tod's foot.

"No," said Tod; "only Biddy."

There was perfect silence till the dog, rising, approached its nose,
black with a splash of pinky whiteness on the end of the bridge, as if
to love the bee.

"No," said Tod. The dog looked at him, and his yellow-brown eyes were
dark with anxiety.

"It'll sting the dog's nose," said Biddy, and Susie and Billy came yet
closer.

It was at this moment, when the heads of the dog, the bee, Tod, Biddy,
Susie, and Billy might have been contained within a noose three feet in
diameter, that Felix dismounted from Stanley's car and, coming from t