Almost immediately Leaper the Locust jumped back again.
But of course he was too late.
XX
THE STRANGER'S MESSAGE
Leaper the Locust was a rude fellow. He actually tried to snatch the message out of Kiddie Katydid's hands. But the stranger promptly bowled him over and told him sternly to be off.
Leaper did not dare disobey. So he hurried away. But after a few moments he came sailing back again and hung on the outskirts of the crowd, to see what was going on.
He soon discovered that there was some difficulty. Kiddie Katydid had torn open the message; and now he turned it over and over, wondering what it said—for to tell the truth, he couldn't read a single word.
"Ah!" the stranger remarked presently. "I see what your trouble is. You haven't your spectacles on!"
He was a polite person—that stranger. He knew better than to suggest that a body didn't know his letters!