Mr. Heron couldn't help being interested.

"Button-holes in what?" he asked Ferdinand Frog.

"Why, in suits of clothes, of course!" the tailor answered. "If you had a tailor's shop, as I have, you'd find that bill of yours a handy thing to have. When you wanted to make a button-hole in a piece of cloth all you'd need do would be to stick your bill through it."

"I'd like to try that," Mr. Heron remarked.

"Then come right over to my shop," Mr. Frog urged him. "I'll let you make all the button-holes you want."

"Very well!" Mr. Heron agreed. "I'll make button-holes until I get hungry."

"That's a good idea!" Mr. Frog cried. And his new friend smiled, for he thought the tailor must be very stupid. He intended to stay with Mr. Frog until he was hungry enough to eat him. And no one who wasn't dull-witted could have failed to grasp his plan.

Well, they started off together; and they arrived shortly afterward at the tailor's shop.

Observing that Mr. Heron was altogether too big to squeeze inside the tiny building, Mr. Frog entered it, to reappear soon with an armful of cloth.

On this Mr. Frog proceeded to mark a row of dots. And then he hung the cloth upon some reeds.

"There!" he announced. "Can you hit the mark?"

"Certainly I can," Mr. Heron replied. And quick as lightning his sharp bill darted out and made a neat hole exactly where every dot had been.

"Splendid! Perfect!" Mr. Frog exclaimed. And thereupon he brought forth more cloth.

In a surprisingly short time Mr. Heron had made eighty-seven button-holes. But Mr. Frog noticed that beginning with the seventy-seventh button-hole the stranger's aim began to fail. He did not hit the dots quite squarely. And he seemed not to have his mind on his work.

"What's the matter?" Mr. Frog inquired. "Are you getting tired?"

"No—not tired," Mr. Heron told him.

"Are your eyes troubling you?" the tailor asked him.

"No—I can see well enough," Mr. Heron replied. "But I'm beginning to feel a bit faint. And I think I've made enough button-holes for one day."

But Mr. Frog said that he had a special suit which he was making for somebody. And he begged Mr. Heron to make the button-holes in that too.

Mr. Heron frowned. But presently he yielded, telling Mr. Frog to hurry, for he had another matter to attend to.

So the tailor leaped into his shop once more. And for a few moments he was very busy, arranging another strip of cloth so that the stranger might make button-holes in it.

When all was ready Mr. Heron stepped up to do his work. He was just about to strike, when he suddenly paused.

"Who's going to have this suit?" he asked the tailor.

"Mr. Fish Hawk," said the tailor. "Do you know him?"

"I should say I did!" Mr. Heron cried. "And he's no friend of mine, I assure you. I only wish he was behind this cloth! I'd run my bill clean through him!"

A cold, cruel glitter came into Mr. Heron's eyes. And when he struck, he struck with all his power, as if he were driving his wicked bill through Mr. Fish Hawk that very moment.

He made only that one thrust. And he did not withdraw his bill, either. Instead he set up a terrible squawking and began to flounder about on the bank of the pond.

"Help! Help!" he cried in a muffled voice.

But Ferdinand Frog only smiled—and made no move to assist his new acquaintance. The truth of the matter was that he had hidden a block of wood behind the cloth, and Mr. Heron had driven his bill into it so far that he couldn't pull it out.

With a loud chuckle Mr. Frog jumped into the water and swam away. And that very day he moved to Black Creek, without troubling himself to learn how Mr. Heron got himself out of his difficulty.

But the tailor couldn't help thinking what a handy thing it would be to have a bill like Mr. Heron's.

"He can even make button-holes in wood!" Mr. Frog exclaimed.