"Hoppety-hop," answered he, and was off again.

"The fellow makes me nervous," she thought, and decided to fly away. She couldn't remember ever having been so insulted in her life. What a disgrace to be mistaken for a wasp, one of those useless wasps, those tramps, those common thieves! It really was infuriating.

But there he was again!

"Mademoiselle," he called and turned round part way, so that his long hindlegs looked like the hands of a clock standing at five minutes before half-past seven, "mademoiselle, you must excuse me for interrupting our conversation now and then. But suddenly I'm seized. I must hop. I can't help it, I must hop, no matter where. Can't you hop, too?"

He smiled a smile that drew his mouth from ear to ear. Maya couldn't keep from laughing.

"Can you?" said the grasshopper, and nodded encouragingly.

"Who are you?" asked Maya. "You're terribly exciting."

"Why, everybody knows who I am," said the green oddity, and grinned almost beyond the limits of his jaws.

Maya never could make out whether he spoke in fun or in earnest.

"I'm a stranger in these parts," she replied pleasantly, "else I'm sure I'd know you.—But please note that I belong to the family of bees, and am positively not a wasp."

"My goodness," said the grasshopper, "one and the same thing."

Maya couldn't utter a sound, she was so excited.

"You're uneducated," she burst out at length. "Take a good look at a wasp once."

"Why should I?" answered the green one. "What good would it do if I observed differences that exist only in people's imagination? You, a bee, fly round in the air, sting everything you come across, and can't hop. Exactly the same with a wasp. So where's the difference? Hoppety-hop!" And he was gone.

"But now I am going to fly away," thought Maya.

There he was again.

"Mademoiselle," he called, "there's going to be a hopping-match tomorrow. It will be held in the Reverend Sinpeck's garden. Would you care to have a complimentary ticket and watch the 

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