If Mr. Chippy had known that his caller was going to be so rude he would have stayed hidden in the wild grapevine. And now he wished that Jasper would go away and leave him in peace. As for laughing, he saw nothing at all to laugh at.
"You'd better do as I tell you!" Jasper Jay warned him. And he raised his crest and stamped angrily upon the stone wall. "You're altogether too quiet. I want you to laugh loud.
"You're going to be happy, if I have to break every bone in your body," Jasper added.
Naturally, that threat did not help little Mr. Chippy to laugh. Instead, he looked quite worried. He knew that Jasper Jay was a bully. And there was no telling what he might do to anyone so small as Mr. Chippy was. So he tried his best to please Jasper. But he was so up[p. 10]set that he could manage only a feeble "Chip, chip, chip, chip!"
"That'll never do," Jasper told him.
"Maybe this will, then," said Mr. Chippy, quietly. And darting at Jasper Jay, he knocked him off the stone wall before Jasper knew what was happening.
Jasper Jay was furious. He scrambled quickly back upon the wall. But Mr. Chippy had vanished. He had dived under the cover of the grapevine and hid in a chink between the stones, where Jasper could not find him.
"I declare—" said Jasper Jay at last—"I declare, he's got away from me!" And so Jasper went off, shaking his head. He had never supposed that mild Mr. Chippy would dare do anything so bold as to knock anybody off a stone wall.
It is plain that Jasper Jay had never learned that one can be brave without[p. 11] boasting. And as he flew off across the road toward the river, Jasper thought he heard a peculiar noise from the depths of the wild grapevine.
It was only Mr. Chippy, chuckling to himself. For Jasper had made him quite happy, after all—though not exactly in the way that the blue-coated bully had intended.