“Then come right along now!” Mr. Frog cried heartily. “We’ll go together. For I’m sure that Long Bill didn’t mean to forget me. You know we’re the best of friends. I make all his clothes for him; and he has never yet paid me a penny.”
Rusty Wren hesitated. He was not quite sure that his cousin had intended to invite the nimble tailor to his party.
“But your singing-party!” he reminded Mr. Frog. “You don’t want to miss that!” he said.
Mr. Frog caught him by a wing and laughed gaily.
“Oh! That doesn’t matter,” he remarked with a careless air. “We have a singing-party almost every night. I’d much rather go to your cousin’s.”
It is not strange that Rusty Wren should feel a little uncomfortable at the prospect of arriving at a party with a person who had received no invitation to it. But he could think of no way of ridding himself of Mr. Frog’s company. So the two started off together towards the home of Long Bill Wren.
Rusty decided, however, that he would take his cousin to one side and explain to him in private how the tailor had happened to come with him.
But he soon found that no such explanation was necessary. For a certain reason, Long Bill Wren was in no wise annoyed. On the contrary, he seemed quite pleased.