"Matter?" said Valentine Veery. "Why, you're all wrong. You're not only twisting the words of the song, but you don't know the air at all. It's plain to see that it was you that made our concert sound so queerly."
Jasper Jay jeered openly at the little leader.
"The trouble—" said Jasper—"the real trouble is that you and your friends don't know this song. I'm the only one that can sing it correctly."
Everybody exclaimed that Jasper was a ridiculous fellow.
"The committee that invited me to come here told me that I might sing as much as I wanted to. And here you've[p. 90] gone and stopped me!" Jasper Jay complained.
Then Buddy Brown-Thrasher cried out in a clear voice that Jasper wasn't trying his best, as he had promised the committee he would.
"In fact," said Buddy, "I'm quite sure he's trying his worst."
Jasper Jay looked quite fierce when he heard that remark.
"It's not so—and you can't prove it!" he screamed.
The little leader turned to Buddy Brown-Thrasher and said: