Sticky-toes was quite upset. There was no doubt about it. Either he had gotten out of the wrong side of his bed that morning, or his breakfast had disagreed with him, or something had happened to make him lose his temper completely.  
"Don't know what it means! Don't know what it means! Don't know what it means!" croaked Sticky-toes the Tree Toad, over and over again. "Heard it last night and the night before that and before that and before that and before that, and I don't know what it means!"
 
"Don't know what what means?" asked Peter Rabbit, whose curiosity would not let him keep still.
 
"Hello, Long-ears! I don't know that it's any of your business!" said
Sticky-toes.
 
Peter allowed that it wasn't, but that as he had so much on his own mind he couldn't help being interested when he found that Sticky-toes had troubles too. Then he told Sticky-toes all about how Boomer the Nighthawk had said that he had seen Sammy Jay going to bed up in the far-away Old Pasture, and how that very night Sammy Jay's voice had been heard screaming down in the alders beside the Laughing Brook. Sticky-toes nodded his head.
 
"I he............