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Tchink, the chaffinch, one of the first to come, could not perch still, but restlessly passed round the circle, now talking to one and now to another, and sometimes peering in at the owl's window. But merry as he was, he turned his back upon Te-te, the tomtit, and chief of the spies, disdaining the acquaintance of a common informer.
"I do not believe it," said King Kapchack. "Where is he?" "If it please your majesty," said the humble-bee, "he is lying on a bank beyond the copse, stretched out in the sunshine, licking his paw, and hoping that rest and sunshine will cure him." "Oh, what a story!" said Bevis. "Hush," said the squirrel. "Somebody said it was a story," said the owl. "So it is," said Te-te.
Te-te, not one whit abashed, sat on a willow, and lifted his voice from time to time. The jay came presently, and for some reason or other he was in high good spirits, and dressed in his gayest feathers.
"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.
He observed that even the little Te-te, the tomtit, and chief of the secret police, who invariably came twice or thrice a day with an account of some gossip he had overheard, did not arrive. How low he must have fallen, since the common informers disdained to associate with him!
When all was ready the owl beckoned to the wren, and the wren flew up and whispered: "I vote for the fox because Te-te shall not have the crown". Next came Te-te, and he said: "I vote for the fox because the wren shall not have it". Then Tchink, who said he voted for the fox so that the goldfinch should not have the throne.
One night while making a very fervent speech, he said: "No half-way measures here. Nothing but the te-te total will do." Mr. Livesey at once seized the word, and, rising, proposed it as the name of the society. The proposition was received with enthusiastic cheering, and these "root and branch" temperance men were thenceforward known as teetotalers.
"Indeed you're not the smallest," said Te-te, the tomtit; "I am the smallest, besides which you are a smuggler. Now I, on the contrary, have already rendered great services to my country, and I am used to official life." "Yes, you spy," cried Tchink, the chaffinch; and all the assembly hissed Te-te, till he was obliged to give way, as he could not make himself heard.
The spring in the copse, which does not freeze in winter, is declared free and open to all travellers, not exceeding fifty in number. The unjust annexations of the late King Kapchack are hereby repudiated, and all the provinces declared independent. Lastly, peace is proclaimed for ever and a day, beginning to-morrow. Phu, the starling. Tchink, the chaffinch. Te-te, the tomtit. Ulu, the hare.
"It is in the elm, just there," said Te-te, "just by those raspberries." "The rascal," said the owl, in a great fright. "Then he has been close by all the time listening." "Yes, he has been listening," said Te-te, meaningly. The owl became pale, remembering the secret meeting of the birds, and what was said there, all of which the treacherous weasel must have overheard.
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