games? My old woman has two left over. She'll trade you one for a compliment. I expect to break the record.""I'm not interested in hopping acrobatics," said Maya in some disgust. "A person who flies has _higher_ interests."
The grasshopper grinned a grin you could almost hear.
"Don't think _too_ highly of yourself, my dear young lady. Most creatures in this world can fly, but only a very, very few can hop. You don't understand other people's interests. You have no vision. Even human beings would like a high elegant hop. The other day I saw the Reverend Sinpeck hop a yard up into the air to impress a little snake that slid across his road. His contempt for anything that couldn't hop was so great that he threw away his pipe. And reverends, you know, cannot live without their pipes. I have known grasshoppers--members of my own family--who could hop to a height three hundred times their length. _Now_ you're impressed. You haven't a word to say. And you're inwardly regretting the remarks you made and the remarks you intended to make. Three hundred times their own length! Just imagine. Even the elephant, the largest animal in the world, can't hop as high as that. Well? You're not saying anything. Didn't I tell you you wouldn't have anything to say?"
"But how _can_ I say anything if you don't give me a chance?"
"All right, then, talk," said the grasshopper pleasantly. "Hoppety-hop." He was gone.
Maya had to laugh in spite of her irritation. The fellow had certainly furnished her with a strange experience. Buffoon though he was, still she had to admire his wide information and worldly wisdom; and though she could not agree with his views of hopping, she was amazed by all the new things he had taught her in their brief conversation. If he had been more reliable she would have been only too glad to ask him questions about a number of different things. It occurred to her that often people who are least equipped to profit by experiences are the very ones who have them.
He knew the names of human beings. Did he, then, understand their language? If he came back, she'd ask him. And she'd also ask him what he thought of trying to go near a human being or of entering a human being's house.
"Mademoiselle!" A blade of grass beside Maya was set swaying.
"Goodness gracious! Where do you keep coming from?"
"The surroundings."
"But do tell, do you hop out into the world just so, without knowing where you mean to land?"
"Of course. Why not? Can _you_ read the future? No one can. Only the tree-toad, but he never tells."
"The things you know! Wonderful, simply wonderful!-- Do you understand the language of human beings?"
"That's a difficult question to answer, mademoiselle, because it hasn't been proved as yet whether human beings have a language. Sometimes they utter sounds 

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