Well, the Woodchuck brothers looked at one another in a puzzled fashion.
"Never again let me hear you whistling, 'Pop! Goes the Weasel,'" Grumpy warned them. That was the name of the Woodchuck brothers' favorite air, and the one they could whistle best. And any one could see that they were quite upset.
"Why don't you like that tune?" Billy Woodchuck asked Grumpy Weasel politely.
"It's that word 'pop,'" Grumpy said. "It reminds me of a pop-gun. And a pop-gun reminds me of a real gun. And that's something I don't want to think about."
Well, the Woodchuck brothers looked
at one another again. But this time they smiled.
"You've misunderstood," Billy Woodchuck told Grumpy Weasel. "This is a different kind of pop. It means that when you enter a hole you pop into it in a jiffy, without taking all day to do it."
For a wonder Grumpy Weasel was almost pleased.
"That's true!" he cried. "I couldn't be slow if I wanted to be!" And he actually asked the Woodchuck brothers to whistle "Pop! Goes the Weasel" once more.
But Grumpy Weasel never thought of thanking them.