One quick backward glance at a small wet head in the water told Grumpy that he had nothing to fear.
"Hullo, yourself!" he retorted "And you'd better not call me 'stranger,' because I'm no stranger than you are."
Well, Paddy Muskrat—for it was he who had spied Grumpy Weasel on the bank of the pond—saw at once that whoever the slender and elegant person might be, he had the worst of manners. Though Paddy had lived in the mill pond a long time, he had never met any one that looked exactly like the newcomer. To be sure, there was Peter Mink, who was long-
bodied and short-tempered, as the stranger appeared to be. But when Paddy inquired whether the visitor wasn't a distant connection of the Mink family (as indeed he was!), Grumpy Weasel said, "What! Do you mean to insult me by asking whether I'm related to such a ragged, ruffianly crowd?"
Somehow Paddy Muskrat rather liked that answer, for Peter Mink and all his family were fine swimmers and most unwelcome in the mill pond.
And perhaps—who knew?—perhaps the spic-and-span chap on the bank, with the sleek coat and black-tipped tail, was one of the kind that didn't like to get his feet wet.
Then Paddy Muskrat asked the stranger a silly question. He was not the wisest person, anyhow, in Pleasant Valley, as his wife often reminded him. "You're
not a distant relation of Tommy Fox, are you?" he inquired.
Grumpy Weasel actually almost smiled.
"Now, how did you happen to guess that?" he asked.