"I'd certainly like to see them," Grunty Pig murmured.
"They're a pretty sight," Spot assured him. "Don't you think you'd feel uncomfortable if you appeared before them with a tail? Don't you want to have yours cut off before you go to see these tailless little fellows? It seems to me you'd be more at your ease. It would certainly be polite of you."
Grunty Pig, however, cared little for politeness. He said that nobody was polite to him. His brothers—and even his sisters—were always knocking him down and trampling on him.
"Very well!" said Spot. "Squirm through that fence and follow me."
It was a tight squeeze. When Grunty Pig was half through the hole in the fence he found himself stuck fast. He could move neither forward nor back. "Oh, dear!" he wailed. "What shall I do?"
"Keep perfectly still!" old dog Spot cautioned him—as if Grunty Pig could do anything else. "I'll jump the fence and help you."
Now, Grunty Pig thought that old Spot intended to give him a push. Instead, Spot nipped him smartly.
It was exactly the sort of help that Grunty needed. He gave a frantic plunge forward and fell, sprawling, on the ground outside the yard, where Spot soon joined him.
"It takes old Spot to hurry 'em along," said the old dog gleefully.