“Never mind, let’s have at it again,” cried the Beetle, seizing her round the waist, and blundering on again in a furious gallop of his own invention.
“Whom shall I send for the Glow-worm’s relations?” muttered the Butterfly to herself.
“Send the Snail,” said a lively young Cricket, who had devoted himself to doing mischief during the whole evening.
“Peace, little goose,” replied the Butterfly, tapping the Cricket on the nose with her fan, and hastening towards the Grasshopper, who was still enthralled and convulsed by the bloated old Spider.
“Whom should we send, my dear!” said the Grasshopper, in reply to the Butterfly’s question; “the Fly footman, to be sure; and pray tell him to be smart about it, for I’ve been run down half-a-dozen times already by the dancers since the sun set. One lamp is too little for our ball-room. That blind Mole has run—ha! there he comes again. Look out!”
As he spoke, the Mole came bearing down towards them in a furious Portuguese waltz, with a horrified Dragonfly struggling in his arms.
The Grasshopper made a bound to get out of the way, but at that moment the lively young Cricket laid hold of his leg and held him fast. The consequence was that the Mole tumbled over him, fell on the top of the bloated Spider, and hit his head so violently on the breast of the Bull-frog that he stopped his noise immediately.
This sudden stoppage of the bass brought the other musicians to a stand, and as a matter of course stopped the dancing abruptly—with the exception of a deaf Squirrel, who had failed to find a partner, and who went on revolving slowly by himself as if nothing had happened.
“Dear me,” exclaimed everybody (except the Squirrel), “what has happened?”