“Why, without going into your house!” said Jimmy Rabbit. “I can’t climb a tree, you know. And neither can Tommy Fox. We might have a dispute to-night; and how could you ever settle it?”
“Oh, I shall be willing to step outside,” Solomon told him. And he refused to change the sign, declaring that he liked it just as it was.
Now, there was only one trouble with Solomon Owl’s settling of disputes. Many of the forest folk wanted to see him in the daytime. And night was the only time he was willing to see them. But he heard so many objections to that arrangement that in the end Solomon agreed to meet people at dusk and at dawn, when it was neither very dark nor very light. On the whole he found that way very satisfactory, because there was just enough light at dusk and at dawn to make him blink. And when Solomon blinked he looked even wiser than ever.
Well, the first disputing pair that came to Solomon’s tree after he hung out his new sign were old Mr. Crow and Jasper Jay. They reached the hemlock grove soon after sunset and squalled loudly for Solomon. “Hurry!” Mr. Crow cried, as soon as Solomon Owl stepped outside his door. “It will be dark before we know it; and it’s almost our bedtime.”
“What’s your difficulty?” Solomon asked them.
Mr. Crow looked at Jasper Jay. And then he looked at Solomon again.
“Maybe you won’t like to hear it,” he said. And he winked at Jasper. “But you’ve put out this sign—so we’ve come here.”
“You’ve done just right!” exclaimed Solomon Owl. “And as for my not liking to hear the trouble, it’s your dispute and not mine. So I don’t see how it concerns me—except to settle it.”
“Very Well,” Mr. Crow answered. “The dispute, then, is this: Jasper says that in spite of your looking so wise, you’re really the stupidest person in Pleasant Valley.”
“He does, eh?” cried Solomon Owl, while Jasper Jay laughed loudly. “And you, of course, do not agree with him,” Solomon continued.