o lazy that he wanted to be waited on all the time.

"It happened about this time that he overheard Mr. Fox talking to Mr.
Wolf when they both thought him asleep. 'A pretty kind of a king, he
is!' sneered Mr. Fox. 'The idea of a king without a tail!'

"'That's so,' assented Mr. Wolf. 'Why, even that little upstart, Mr.
Rabbit, has got a make-believe tail.'"

Grandfather Frog's eyes twinkled as he said this, and Peter looked
very much embarrassed. But he didn't say anything, so Grandfather Frog
went on.

"Old King Bear pretended to wake up just then, and right away Mr. Fox
and Mr. Wolf were as polite and smiling as you please and began to
flatter him. They told him how proud they were of their king, and how
handsome he was, and a lot of other nice things, all of which he had
heard often before and had believed. He pretended to believe them now,
but after they were through paying their respects and had gone away,
he kept turning over and over in his mind what he had overheard them
say when they thought he was asleep.

"After that he couldn't think of anything but the fact that he hadn't
any tail. He took particular notice of all who came to pay him
tribute, and he saw that every one of them had a tail. Some had long
tails; some had short tails; some had handsome tails and some had
homely tails; but everybody had a tail of some kind. The more he tried
not to think of these tails, the more he did think of them. The more
he thought of them, the more discontented he grew because he had none.
He didn't stop to think that probably all of them had use for their
tails. No, Sir, he didn't think of that. Everybody else had a tail,
and he hadn't. He felt that it was a disgrace that he, the king,
should have no tail. He brooded over it so much that he lost his
appetite and grew cross and peevish.

"Then along came Old Mother Nature to see how things were going in the
Green Forest. Of course she saw right away that something was wrong
with Old King Bear. When she asked him what the matter was, he was
ashamed to tell her at first. But after a little he told her that he
wanted a tail; that he could never again be happy unless he had a
tail. She told him that he hadn't the least use in the world for a
tail, and that he wouldn't be any happier if he had one. Nothing that
she could say made any difference--he wanted a tail. Finally she gave
him one.

"For a few days Old King Bear was perfectly happy. He spent all his
spare time ad