The sprightly tailor looked slightly disappointed.
"I don't know whether the news will keep or not," he replied slyly. "It's very important. And I may have to tell it to someone else first if you don't care to hear it now."
"What's your news about?" Mr. Crow asked him gruffly. "I suppose you've made another suit for somebody. And you remember I told you I couldn't put that news in my newspaper any more unless you paid me something. It's advertising. And nobody gets free advertising."
"This news is something entirely different from anything you've ever heard," Mr. Frog insisted. "It's about Kiddie Katydid. He's a——"
"Wait till I come back from the cornfield!" Mr. Crow pleaded.
"I can't! I simply must tell it now!" Mr. Frog cried.
"Very well! But please talk fast; for I'm terribly hungry."
"Kiddie Katydid is a fiddler," Mr. Frog announced. "He fiddles every night. And that's the way he makes that ditty of his—Katy did, Katy——"
"Don't!" Mr. Crow begged. "Please don't! It's bad enough to have to hear that silly chorus every time I happen to wake up during the night—bad enough, I say, without being obliged to listen to it in broad daylight."
"Very well!" the tailor yielded. "But he fiddles it, all the same. And when you tell my tale to Brownie Beaver I guess he'll be surprised."