"Nonsense!" cried Spot. "What a person eats doesn't make his ears either long or short."
"Are you sure of that?" Henrietta Hen wanted to know.
"I've never eaten cabbage in all my life," he declared.
Still she couldn't rid herself of her fears.
"Perhaps," she said, "if you had eaten it your ears would have grown twice as long as they are now."
He shook his head. "I don't think so," he muttered.
"There's only one way to find out," Henrietta announced. "Eat a lot of cabbage—all you can! And we'll soon see whether your ears are growing longer."
But old dog Spot refused flatly to do anything of the sort. He said that his ears suited him quite well, just as they were.
"What!" Henrietta cried. "Wouldn't you eat cabbage to oblige a lady?"
Old Spot said he was sorry; but he had no liking for cabbage.