Buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz; Back and forth, back and forth, Fanning and stirring and driving and churning; Old air we're forcing forth, new air's returning. On our heads all the day; This is the only way We can keep sweet the hive And our dear bees alive. Whirr, whirr, whirr, whirr; Roundabout, roundabout, Living fans ceaselessly driving and churning; Foul air we're forcing forth, fresh air's returning. Upside down all the day; Beating our wings away; So we keep sweet the hive And our dear bees alive. While the ventilating bees were singing and Nuova stood idly watching and listening to them, a small, old drone bee with crumpled-up, that is, deformed wings, came, half walking and half comically hopping, down the long aisle between the vertical combs from the back and darker part of the hive. He was humming a song to himself as he came along. Beffa was the name of the deformed bee, and he was the jester of the hive, as could be guessed by his hopping way of walking, and by the words of his song. When Nuova heard Beffa singing, she turned toward him, but did not interrupt him. She was ever so much interested in his appearance, and by his sort of hopping dance which he kept up all the time he was singing, and by the song itself, which told her something about him, but not enough. As he stopped singing, Nuova spoke, speaking to herself at first, and then to him. "Oh, what a funny bee," she said. "You _are_ a bee, aren't you?" Beffa stared at her a moment, then made her a deep, mocking bow and gave a hop or two. "Yes, pretty one, which is, of course, to say, stupid one, I be a bee--just as you be, only not just so, for I be doing my work, which I don't see that you be." Then he hopped comically about, humming to himself the refrain of his song. No one, however, paid any attention to him except Nuova, who exclaimed rather petulantly: "Oh, work, work, work; always that word!" "Yes," said Beffa, mockingly bowing and hopping about her, "but not always that work"; imitating grotesquely for a moment Nuova's idle attitude. "Do you call that hopping and singing work?" indignantly exclaimed Nuova. "Why don't you go and nurse babies?" Beffa, who was again at his hopping and humming, stopped a moment to stare at her in surprise; then replied, in a sing-song: "I can't, oh, I can't nurse babies." "Then make wax," said Nuova. "I can't, oh, I can't make wax," hummed Beffa. "Then build a comb, or fill cracks, or clean the floor, or"--and she pointed to the ventilating bees near them--"ventilate," persisted Nuova. "I can't," sang again Beffa, "oh, I can't build cells, or fill cracks, or scrub floors, or--" and he broke off suddenly with a sort of catch in his voice. But Nuova blindly persisted. "Well, then, why don't you go out and gather pollen and bring nectar; out into the sunshine, out into the garden."