"Kapchack," said the toad, not in the least frightened, "Kapchack is the magpie; and he is king over everything and everybody—over the fly and the wasp, and the finches, and the heron, and the horse, and the rabbit, and the flowers, and the trees. Kapchack, the great and mighty magpie, is the king," and the toad bumped his chin on the ground, as if he stood before the throne, so humble was he at the very name of Kapchack. Then he shut one eye in a very peculiar manner, and put out his tongue.
"Why don't you like Kapchack?" said Bevis, who understood him in a minute.
"Hush!" said the toad, and he repeated out loud, "Kapchack is the great and noble magpie—Kapchack is the king!" Then he whispered to Bevis to sit down on the grass very near him, so that he might speak to him better, and not much louder than a whisper. When Bevis had sat down and stooped a little, the toad came close to the mouth of his hole, and said very quietly: "Bevis dear, Kapchack is a horrid wretch!"
"Why," said Bevis, "why do you hate him? and where does he live? and why is he king? I suppose he is very beautiful?"
"Oh, dear, no!" said the toad, hastily, "he is the ugliest creature that ever hopped. The feathers round one eye have all come out and left a bare place, and he is quite blind on the other. Indeed his left eye is gone altogether. His beak is chipped and worn; his wings are so beaten and decayed that he can hardly fly; and there are several feathers out of his tail. He is the most miserable thing you ever saw."
"Then why is he king?" asked Bevis.
"Because he is," said the toad; "and as he is king, nobody else can be. It is true he is very wise—at least everybody says so—wiser than the crow or the rook, or the weasel (though the weasel is so cunning). And besides, he is so old, so very old, nobody knows when he was born, and they say that he will always live, and never die. Why, he put my grandfather in prison."
"In prison?" said Bevis. "Where is the prison?"
"In the elm-tree, at the top of the Home Field," said the toad. "My grandfather has been shut up there in a little dungeon so tight, he cannot turn round, or sit, or stand, or lie down, for so long a time that, really, Bevis dear, I cannot tell you; but it was before you were born. And all that time he has had nothing to eat or drink, and he has never seen the sun or felt the air, and I do not suppose he has ever heard anything unless when the thunderbolt fell on the oak close by. Perhaps he heard the thunder then."
"Well, then, what has he been doing?" asked Bevis, "and why doesn't he get out?"