"Oh! I never could sing that way!" Bobby Bobolink cried. "I have to sing joyful songs. And you know you always sing that kind in quick time."
"Pardon me!" said the Hermit, who was a most polite person. "I never sing joyful songs. So you see you are mistaken."
"Well, if you sang the sort I do you'd[p. 104] know that they have to be given in a lively fashion," Bobby told him. "I don't see how it would be possible to make a song sound merry if it had to be sung slowly."
The Hermit pondered over that speech.
"There's only one thing for you to do," he said at last. "You must select only mournful songs.... You know you sing them in slow time."
"Pardon me!" Bobby Bobolink said, for he was determined to be just as polite as the Hermit. "I never sing mournful songs. So you see you are mistaken."
Now, for some reason the Hermit thought that a rude remark, though it was quite like one that he had made himself but a few moments before. He drew himself up stiffly and said that he didn't care to talk with Bobby Bobolink any further. "You know," he added, "we haven't been introduced."
[p. 105]Somehow that amused Bobby. Before he knew what he was doing he had laughed aloud. And the moment he laughed he felt so happy once more that he couldn't help singing. So he started right in the middle of a song, where it was the liveliest. And finding, when he had finished, that he hadn't exploded, but felt better for the effort, he never paid any more heed to the Hermit's solemn warning.
As for the Hermit, he went straight off to the other side of Cedar Swamp to live. He claimed that he simply had to have quiet. And there was no such thing, with Bobby Bobolink around.