"Oh," said the squirrel, "it is a very serious business, let me tell you. It is not an ordinary falling in love, it is nothing less than a complete revolution of everything, and it will upset all the rules and laws that have been handed down ever since the world began."
"Dear me!" said Bevis. "And who is it Kapchack is in love with? I have asked twenty people, but no one will tell me."
"Why, I am telling you," said the squirrel. "Don't you see, if it had been an ordinary affair—only a young magpie—it would not have mattered much, though I daresay the queen would have been jealous, but this——"
"Who is it?" said Bevis, in a rage. "Why don't you tell me who it is?"
"I am telling you," said the squirrel, sharply.
"No, you're not. You're telling me a lot of things, but not what I want to know."
"Oh, well," said the squirrel, tossing his head and swishing his tail, "of course, if you know more about it than I do it is no use my staying." So off he went in a pet.
Up jumped Bevis. "You're a stupid donkey," he shouted, and ran across to the other side, and threw a piece of stick up into an elm-tree after the squirrel. But the squirrel was so quick he could not see which way he had gone, and in half-a-minute he heard the squirrel say very softly: "Bevis dear," behind him, and looked back, and there he was sitting on the oak bough again.
The squirrel, as the toad had said, was really a very good fellow; he was very quick to take offence, but his temper only lasted a minute. "Bevis dear," he said, "come back and sit down again on the moss, and I will tell you."
"I sha'n't come back," said Bevis, rather sulkily. "I shall sit here."