Chapter III: Part 3

But Mrs. Grabem replied, "You know nothing of house-keeping my dear. Go to sleep and hold your tongue."

When Fuz-Buz overheard all this he was scared to death. All next day he was so sick that he could not even tell the shortest story.

At night-fall when the family had gone to their den, he sat on the tree near his cosy little crack and tried to gnaw the web which held him.

Unluckily it was too tough. When he was in despair who should hum by but a huge Bee.

"Halloa!" said he, "What's wrong with you?"

"Sir!" replied Fuz-Buz, "I am tied by the leg to this web, and am to be eaten to-night by a cruel monster of a spider who lives near, and who will overhear you if you do not speak in a low voice."

"Who's afraid?" said the Bee. "Which leg is it?"

"This," answered Fuz-Buz.

"Pshaw!" cried the Bee, and with that he twisted the web about his legs and gave a jump. Snap went the line and Fuz-buz was free once more. Never a fly was so glad as he.

"Sir!" he said, "I am only sorry that you have not had the honour to slay this vile spider. Now if you were to slip into this crack where I sleep, you would have a fine chance, because when Mrs. Grabem comes to eat me you could give her a pleasing surprise."

"That's a rather jolly notion," answered the Bee. So he went down on the ground, and after sharpening his sting on a smooth pebble, thrust himself deep into the crack where Fuz-Buz was wont to sleep.

But as for Fuz-Buz the fly, he sat on a limb above and looked on. After a little, when it was dark or nearly so, out came Mrs. Grabem slowly, and crawling over her web went down into the crack to murder poor innocent Fuz-Buz. Presently she cried aloud,

"Oh! I'm dead!" which was true in a moment, for Sir Bee had run his long sword straight through her, and she had tumbled off the tree as dead as could be.

At the sound of her voice all the young spiders ran out, and in a moment they saw Sir Bee with his quick sword. In a twinkling he stabbed them one after another, until he came to the youngest. Then Fuz-Buz said,

"Halloa! my friend, let this one go, for he was the only one who did not desire to kill me."

"Sir!" cried the youngest spider, "I do not wish to live after you have killed my mother and all my brothers and sisters. Take that, sir!"

So saying he dealt the Bee such a crack that he was forced to stab him like the rest, and there at last was the end of all of them.

As for Fuz-Buz, he said "Well, it's one spider less, and so many flies more. Spiders are of no use and flies are."

Meanwhile Sir Bee wiped his sword and took up his bag of honey, feeling that he had done a clever day's work, while Fuz-Buz flew away to Spain, and never could be brought to tell anybody a story long or short up to the end of his happy life.

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