"True," muttered the bear. "That is just what is so sickening. I have been for a little tour abroad, I may tell you, and am just a little bit spoilt. It was in a land down towards the south—there I took a nap under the beech trees. They are tall, slim trees, not crooked old things like you. And their tops are so dense that the sunbeams cannot creep through them. It was a real pleasure there to take a midday nap, I assure you."
"Beech trees?" said the oak inquisitively. "What are they?"
"You might well wish you were half as pretty as a beech tree," said the bear. "But I don't want to chatter any more with you just now. I have had to trot a mile on account of a confounded hunter who struck me on one of my hind legs with an arrow. Now I should like to have a sleep, and perhaps you will be kind enough to leave me at peace, since you cannot give me shade."
The bear stretched himself out and closed his eyes; but he got no sleep that time, for the other trees had heard his story, and they began chattering and talking and rustling their leaves in a way never known in the wood before.
"What on earth can those trees be?" said one of them.
"It is, of course, a mere story; the bear wishes to impose upon us," said the other.
"What kind of trees can they be whose leaves sit so close together that the sunbeams cannot creep between them?" asked a little oak, who was listening to what the big ones were talking about.
But by his side stood an old gnarled tree, who gave the little oak a clout on the head with one of his lowest boughs.