"Is that so?" Grandaddy Beaver quavered. "Then I must have made a mistake. You know I'm a leetle hard of hearing."
"Never mind!" Ferdinand Frog answered, for he always took his troubles lightly. "Bring 'em when you come to have your clothes fitted and it'll be all right."
So he worked on. But by and by he began to grow uneasy again. And now and then he paused and went to the window, where he peered somewhat anxiously at the Beavers who waited before his door in a long line.
"It's queer!" Mr. Frog exclaimed aloud at last. "Here I've been measuring 'em for an hour and a half; and there's just as many of 'em left. . . . I'll have to stop soon," he continued, "for I'm going to a singing-party to-night. And I don't want to be late."
His customers, however, wouldn't hear of his leaving. The moment Mr. Frog's remarks passed down the line, the Beaver family began to jostle and push one another. They crowded inside the tailor's shop.
And to get rid of them, Mr. Frog worked faster than ever. So great was his haste that he measured everybody wrong; whereas before he had measured them correctly, while merely scratching wrong figures upon the stones.
And finally he stopped suddenly. As Grandaddy Beaver stepped forward to be measured for the fourth time it dawned upon Mr. Frog that he had measured him several times already.
But Ferdinand Frog said nothing at all.
Holding one end of his tape in his mouth, he passed the other end around Grandaddy's plump body.
All at once a cry of dismay came from the customers who were looking on while they waited.