"I am just going home," said the humble-bee, and buzzed along.
So the fox went a little farther, and said to a butterfly: "Beautiful butterfly, will you carry a message for me?" But the disdainful butterfly did not even answer.
The fox went a little farther, and met a tomtit. "Te-te," said he, addressing the tomtit by name, "will you carry a message for me?"
"What impudence!" said Te-te. "Mind your own business, and do not speak to gentlemen."
"I see how it is," said the fox to himself, "the fortunes of my family are fallen, and I am disregarded. When we were rich, and had a great reputation, and were the first of all the people in the wood, then we had messengers enough, and they flew to do our bidding. But now, they turn aside. This is very bitter. When I get home, I must curl round and think about it; I cannot endure this state of things. How dreadful it is to be poor! I wish we had not dissipated our wealth so freely. However, there is a little left still in a secret corner. As I said, I must see about it. Here is a gnat. Gnat, will you carry a message for me?"
"Well, I don't know," said the gnat; "I must think about it. Will to-morrow do?"
"No," said the fox quickly, before the gnat flew off. "Go for me to Kapchack, and say there has been a secret——"
"A secret?" said the gnat; "that's another matter." And he went down closer to the fox.
"Yes," said the fox, "you fly as fast as you can, and whisper to Kapchack—you have free admittance, I know, to the palace—that there has been a secret meeting in the copse about his love affair, and that the courtiers are all against it, and are bent on his destruction, especially the owl, the hawk, the crow, the rook, the weasel (the weasel worst of all, for they would have chosen him as their deputy), the stoat, and the jackdaw, and that he has only one true friend, the fox, who sends the message."
"All right!" said the gnat; "all right, I'll go!" And off he flew, delighted to be entrusted with so great a secret.