he hadn't been the son of the Queen they would certainly have driven him out into the wide world long before.

Of course, Buster had no idea of what was afoot. He continued to tell everybody how sorry he was that he had never met the Robber Fly, until a few began to believe that he must be very brave indeed. But they were those that didn't know him well. As for the workers, there wasn't one in the Bumblebee household that was deceived by Buster's bold talk. They all knew him for the coward he was.

Well, the very next day after Buster's impertinence to his mother a worker called Peevish Peggy stopped and spoke to him as he sat on a clover-head.

"If I were you I wouldn't come near the clover patch," she said. "You know the Robber Fly often prowls about on the ground. And it would be easy for him to catch you on a clover-top, you're so fat and clumsy.... Why don't you dine on the hollyhocks in the flower garden? They are high, and much safer."

Buster Bumblebee seemed greatly amused.

"Ho, ho!" he laughed—as well as "Ha, ha!" And then he said: "It seems to me that you are the one that ought to buzz around the hollyhocks, since you are so nervous about the Robber Fly."

The worker, Peevish Peggy, at once flew into a temper.

"You'd better look out!" she warned Buster. "Once the Robber Fly pounces on you you'll be so frightened you can't even squirm."

"Oh, nonsense!" said Buster.

The quick-tempered worker, Peevish Peggy, looked slyly over her shoulder and nodded slightly.

Buster did not see the form that crept nearer and nearer to him, a little later. And he was still chuckling to himself when he heard a terrible humming. Then all at once he felt himself seized and held in a grip like iron.

He was sure that the Robber Fly had him at last. And he was too frightened for anything.