"You—er—you trumpet beautifully," he stammered, remembering that that was another remark which Chirpy Cricket had suggested as being likely to put the trumpeter into a pleasant frame of mind.
At that the rude creature laughed most scornfully.
"I'd like to know how you can say that," she sneered. "You're so lazy and such a sleepy-head that you never hear me when I wake the household. In fact, I don't believe you would ever wake up enough to crawl out of bed if you didn't get hungry—and goodness knows you do love to eat."
"No such thing!" cried Buster Bumblebee.
And happening just at that moment to spy an unusually tempting clover-top close beside him, he lighted upon it and began to suck up its sweet juices.
The trumpeter at once screamed joyfully and pointed a finger straight at him.
"There you go!" she cried. "You have to stop and eat even while you're talking with a lady! Why, you eat and sleep so much that you don't know what you're doing or saying half the time."
One might naturally think that such a remark would have angered Buster. But he was not one to lose his temper easily. And he merely looked at the trumpeter sadly and said:
"Don't speak to me like that! I'm a queen's son. I'm a gentleman."