“My friends,” broke in a very solemn voice.
Every beetle stopped talking, and Ruth jumped to her feet, then flopped down on the grass again, waiting for what was coming.
The speaker, a large, clean-looking beetle, had just flown to a twig in the very middle of the meeting. He was black in colour, well sprinkled above and below with pale straw yellow in dots and points, but the queer thing about him was the two oval velvety black spots, each with a narrow line of straw colour around it, on his thorax. They were like great eyes, and made him look very wise.
“He is the eyed-elater,” whispered Mrs. Sawyer to Ruth. “There he is speaking again.”
“My friends,” the big beetle was saying in tones as solemn, as before, “the important thing in any meeting is to keep to the main issue.”
“The main issue?” said the goldsmith beetle, a beautiful little creature with wing covers of golden yellow, and a body of metallic green covered with white, woolly fuzz. “What is the main issue?”
“Dinner,” replied the tiger beetle, returning to his old place. “If it isn’t breakfast or supper.”
“No, my friend,” said the eyed-elater, with a grave glance, “the main issue is——”
Then he stopped and fixed his two real eyes and the two spots which looked like eyes on some small beetles which were leaping in the air, turning somersaults, and making quite a noise.
“Will you be still?” he said in his sternest voice.