“Did you find it?” Mr. Fox asked him.
“No!” said Billy in a faint voice.
“Well, well!” said Mr. Fox. “I must be mistaken.... Yes, I know I am. It was in another stump. Just step outside and I’ll show you which one.” The hole was too small for him to squeeze through. If it had been bigger he would not have bothered to ask Billy to come out.
Mr. Fox pulled his head back and waited. But Billy Woodchuck did not appear.
Soon Mr. Fox took another look inside the hollow stump.
“What’s the matter?” he asked. “Aren’t you coming?”
Then he had a surprise. For Billy Woodchuck was gone. Mr. Fox saw that the old stump was empty.
He thought that Billy must have used magic, to leave that place and run away under his very eyes. For you may be sure that Mr. Fox had kept a close watch on the hole all the time. And he told all his friends that Billy Woodchuck knew a way to make himself invisible—a word which means that nobody could see him.
Later, when Billy heard what people were saying about him, he only looked wise and said nothing.
But he had been sadly frightened when Mr. Fox peeped inside the old stump. And he had made up his mind at once that he would not come out and be caught. He knew better than that. For now he believed everything his mother had told him about foxes.