r. Frog announced, as soon as the old black
scamp alighted near him.

"It'll have to keep," Mr. Crow replied. "I'm on my way to the cornfield.
I haven't had my breakfast yet. And a person of my age has to eat his
meals regularly."

The sprightly tailor looked slightly disappointed.

"I don't know whether the news will keep or not," he replied slyly.
"It's very important. And I may have to tell it to someone else first
if you don't care to hear it now."

"What's your news about?" Mr. Crow asked him gruffly. "I suppose you've
made another suit for somebody. And you remember I told you I couldn't
put that news in my newspaper any more unless you paid me something.
It's advertising. And nobody gets free advertising."

"This news is something entirely different from anything you've ever
heard," Mr. Frog insisted. "It's about Kiddie Katydid. He's a----"

"Wait till I come back from the cornfield!" Mr. Crow pleaded.

"I can't! I simply _must_ tell it now!" Mr. Frog cried.

"Very well! But please talk fast; for I'm terribly hungry."

"Kiddie Katydid is a fiddler," Mr. Frog announced. "He fiddles every
night. And that's the way he makes that ditty of his--_Katy did,
Katy_----"

"Don't!" Mr. Crow begged. "Please don't! It's bad enough to have to hear
that silly chorus every time I happen to wake up during the night--bad
enough, I say, without being obliged to listen to it in broad daylight."

"Very well!" the tailor yielded. "But he fiddles it, all the same. And
when you tell my tale to Brownie Beaver I guess he'll be surprised."

"I shan't tell him," Mr. Crow declared, thereby astonishing Mr. Frog.

"Why not?" the tailor demanded.

"We've had a slight disagreement," said Mr. Crow with a hoarse laugh.
"I'm not his newspaper any longer."

"Well, there's nothing to prevent your telling this story to other
people, is there? And you certainly will be willing to mention me at the
same time, won't you?" Mr. Frog inquired with an anxious pucker between
his strange eyes.

"Where do _you_ come in, pray tell?" Mr. Crow inquired coldly.

"Why, I discovered the secret!"

"Perhaps you did--and perhaps you didn't," Mr. Crow observed. Being
very, very old, he was very, very wise. And he had long since learned
that Mr. Frog was a somewhat slippery person. "If I spread any such news
as this about Pleasant Valley I shall do it in my own way," he remarked.
And thereupon the old gentleman rose quickly and disappeared in the
dir