"
"But why do you ask me?" said the boy, in surprise.
"Well, you have a decent, honest sort of face, although your tongue
is disordered."
"I had rather it had been because you liked my songs," said the boy,
and he went in to breakfast with the baker.
II
Over his breakfast the boy talked wisely on art, as is the wont of
young singers, and afterwards he went on his way down the street.
"It's a great pity," said the baker; "he seems a decent young chap."
"He has nice eyes," said the baker's wife.
As the boy passed down the street he frowned a little.
"What is the matter with them?" he wondered. "They're pleasant people
enough, and yet they did not want to hear my songs."
Presently he came to the tailor's shop, and as the tailor had sharper
eyes than the baker, he saw the pipe in the boy's pocket.
"Hullo, piper!" he called. "My legs are stiff. Come and sing us a
song!"
The boy looked up and saw the tailor sitting cross-legged in the open
window of his shop.
"What sort of song would you like?" he asked.
"Oh! the latest," replied the tailor. "We don't want any old songs
here." So the boy sung his new song of the kingfisher in the
water-meadow and the cuckoo who had overslept itself.
"And what do you call that?" asked the tailor angrily, when the boy
had finished.
"It's my new song, but I don't think it's one of my best." But in his
heart the boy believed it was, because he had only just made it.
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