Well, that struck old Mr. Crow as being very funny. He forgot all about his loss of sleep. And his eye twinkled quite 22 merrily. He tried to laugh, too; but it was a pitiful attempt—no more than a hoarse cackle, which was, as Jimmy Rabbit had said, positively painful. Old Mr. Crow seemed to realize that he was making a very queer sound. He hastily turned his laugh into a cough and pretended that he had a kernel of corn stuck in his throat.
“What are your prices?” he asked Jolly Robin. “Are you going to charge by the day or by the laugh?”
“Just as you prefer!” Jolly answered.
“Well, I’ll have to think about it,” old Mr. Crow told him. “It’s a question that I wouldn’t care to decide in a hurry. If I paid you by the day you might not laugh at all. And if I paid you by the laugh you might laugh all the time.... It would be pretty expensive, either way. And I don’t believe I’d like that.” 23
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” said Jolly Robin then. “I’ll stay with you one day for nothing. And we’ll see how the arrangement suits us.”
That suggestion pleased Mr. Crow.
“Agreed!” he said quickly. “And now,” he added, “you may laugh for me, because I am quite delighted.”
So Jolly Robin laughed happily. And old Mr. Crow remarked that it was a fair laugh, though not so loud as he would have liked.
“I’ll do better next time,” Jolly assured him.
“Good!” said Mr. Crow. “And now, since I’ve finished my breakfast, we’ll go over to the woods and see what’s going on there this morning.”