"I wonder how the Old Brown Coat does," said the Tufter who had once been rash, as they all stood round the Phoenix one night. "That was a very grand event we brought about--the marriage of the Prince with Isal. If it had not been for us, Isal might still have been only a woodman's daughter and not a Queen at all!" Here the Phoenix spoke, but with a very muffled voice; his age prevented him from talking very loud or much at a time; he was apt to repeat himself, too, sometimes, and to ramble in his remarks. But the Tufters always listened very respectfully to whatever he had to say: he was so old and so wise; everything he said would bear reflection. "You are a goose. My great-great-great grandfather made the Old Brown Coat. He was called Phoenix the Tailor. The world is growing very degenerate. I am five hundred years old very nearly. I don't know what will become of it when I die. The Prince is very well, but he did not know me when he saw me in the garden. I was respected, though. The gardener knew me, and the people shouted. My great--" The Phoenix was going on with some of his reminiscences, or perhaps beginning again, when just at this point there was a rustling in the bushes, and in burst the oldest of the Tufters who had been away hunting for news. All the rest bustled about him as he smoothed his feathers to make his manners to the Phoenix. "I have some very important news!" began he, with great dignity. "Isal's father, the woodman is dying." "Is he, indeed!" exclaimed the rest in chorus, except the Phoenix, who stood with one eye shut, painfully distracted between the desire to administer a rebuke and to hear further. "That may be," said he, finally, "but you should not have interrupted me while I was speaking. Besides you have not told us yet the particulars." "I was flying up the river," proceeded the eldest Tufter, respectfully, "when I happened to recollect little Isal, and how we brought her away from her house. I was passing the very spot, so I just flew in for a moment, and there I saw the woodman, her father, lying upon his bed very sick. There was no one with him." "How sad!" said Rosedrop, mournfully. "The cot from which we took Isal," added the Tufter, "was there still, just as we left it, in precisely the same spot." "How remarkable!" said the rash Tufter, who had become prudent. While all this cackling was going on, the Phoenix maintained a stiff silence. At last he stroked his beak with a claw. "Hush!" said the second Tufter, "we shall hear something now." And surely the Phoenix did speak.