, mademoiselle, because it
hasn't been proved as yet whether human beings have a language.
Sometimes they utter sounds by which they seem to reach an
understanding with each other--but such awful sounds! So
unmelodious! Like nothing else in nature that I know of.
However, there's one thing you must allow them: they do seem to
try to make their voices pleasanter. Once I saw two boys take a
blade of grass between their thumbs and blow on it. The result
was a whistle which may be compared with the chirping of a
cricket, though far inferior in quality of tone, far inferior.
However, human beings make an honest effort.-- Is there anything
else you'd like to ask? I know a thing or two."

He grinned his almost-audible grin.

But the next time he hopped off, Maya waited for him in vain.
She looked about in the grass and the flowers; he was nowhere to
be seen.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

CHAPTER VI

PUCK

Maya, drowsy with the noonday heat, flew leisurely past the
glare on the bushes in the garden, into the cool, broad-leaved
shelter of a great chestnut-tree.

On the trodden sward in the shade under the tree stood chairs
and tables, evidently for an out-door meal. A short distance
away gleamed the red-tiled roof of a peasant's cottage, with
thin blue columns of smoke curling up from the chimneys.

Now at last, thought Maya, she was bound to see a human being.
Had she not reached the very heart of his realm? The tree must
be his property, and the curious wooden contrivances in the
shade below must belong to his hive.

Something buzzed; a fly alighted on the leaf beside her. It ran
up and down the green veining in little jerks. You couldn't see
its legs move, and it seemed to be sliding about excitedly. Then
it flew from one finger of the broad leaf to another, but so
quickly and unexpectedly that you might have thought it hadn't
flown but hopped. Evidently it was looking for the most
comfortable place on the leaf. Every now and then, in the
suddennest way, it would swing itself up in the air a short
space and buzz vehemently, as though something dreadfully
untoward had occurred, or as though it were animated by some
tremendous purpose. Then it would drop back to the leaf, as if
nothing had happened, and resume its jerky racing up and down.
Lastly, it would sit quite still, like a rigid image.

Maya watched its antics in the sunshine, then approached it and
said politely:

"How do you do?