“Oh, much better!” said the hare, as he skipped gladly away. “Except the fox,—and the weasel, you may hurt him—if you can catch him.” He said that, of course, because he was a hare, and felt prejudiced. You must not think I agree with him. Only a critic or a silly person would think that.
CHAPTER VI.
THE GRASS-SNAKE AND ADDER
“Tommy Smith has a talk with the grass-snake, and then
With the adder: they’re both as conceited as men.”
WHEN Tommy Smith had said good-bye to the hare, he thought he would walk home through some woods which were not far off. So off he set towards them, and as he went along he said to himself, “I know there are a great many animals that live in the woods. Now I wonder which of them will be the first to have a talk with me. Let me see. The pigeon and the squirrel both live there, for I have often seen them together on the same tree. And then there is the—” Good gracious! What was that just gliding out from under a bush? Tommy Smith gave a start and a jump, and well he might, for it was a large snake, perhaps three feet long. He was so surprised that, at first, he didn’t quite know what to do, and before he had made up his mind, it was too late to do anything, for the snake had wriggled away into another bush. “It was an adder,” said Tommy Smith out loud. “That, at least, is an animal which I ought to kill, because it is poisonous.”
“I beg your pardon,” said a sharp, hissing voice. “I am not an adder, and I am not poisonous.”
Tommy Smith looked all about, but he could see nothing. Still, he felt sure that it must be the snake who had spoken, because the voice came from the very centre of the bush into which he had seen it go. So he answered, “Of course it is very easy for you to say that, but everybody knows that snakes are poisonous, and, if you are not a snake, I should just like to know what you are.”
“I did not say that I was not a snake,” said the voice again. “Of course I am, but I am not an adder for all that. There are two different kinds of snakes in this country. One is the adder, which is poisonous, and the other is the grass-snake, which is quite harmless. Now I am the grass-snake, so if you had killed me, you would have done something very wrong, for you would have killed a poor harmless animal.”
“Well,” said Tommy Smith, “if that is true, I am glad I didn’t kill you. But are you quite sure?”