"Are you sure it wasn't yourself that[p. 75] you heard?" Daddy Longlegs wanted to know.
"Certainly not!" cried Joseph. "Don't be silly! Don't you suppose I know my own voice when I hear it?"
"Perhaps it was your echo that you heard," Daddy ventured.
At that Joseph Bumble rudely turned his back on him and began whispering to Chirpy Cricket. He was actually suggesting that Daddy Longlegs should be thrown out of the party!
And then Mr. Bumble again paused abruptly and listened.
"There!" he said to Chirpy Cricket. "Don't you hear that buzzing? That's the person that interrupted me. And I'd like to have him put out of the party too, along with this queer old chap who insulted me a moment ago."
Chirpy Cricket looked around, until his[p. 76] eye rested on Buster Bumblebee, who had just arrived and who was at that moment talking with Betsy Butterfly.
"There's the young man you hear!" Chirpy told Joseph Bumble. "Don't you know him?"
"No!" replied Joseph, as his eyes followed Chirpy Cricket's. "And I don't want to know him, either. He looks to me to be a very ordinary person. And anybody can see that he's annoying Betsy Butterfly. I tell you, I want him chased away from here at once. For I'm of royal blood; and I'm not accustomed to go to parties with ragtags and bobtails. I'm a cousin of Buster Bumblebee, the Queen's son."
Well, Chirpy Cricket tried hard not to laugh right in Joseph Bumble's face.