“Oh, can’t I?” said the squirrel. “Why, how did I get here then, from tree to tree? Didn’t you see me?”
“Oh, but that was jumping,” said Tommy Smith.
“Jumping? Nonsense!” said the squirrel. “Why, I went through the air, you know, and that is just what one does when one flies, isn’t it?”
“Oh yes, of course,” said Tommy Smith, “but”—
“Very well,” said the squirrel; “then when I jump, I fly.”
“But you haven’t got wings,” said Tommy Smith. He knew he was right, but he didn’t know how to prove it.
“That makes it all the more clever of me,” said the squirrel. “It is easy enough to fly if you have wings, but very difficult indeed if you haven’t. But we squirrels are a clever family, and can do anything. Why, one of us is called the ‘Flying Squirrel,’ you know; and why should he be called a flying squirrel if he can’t fly? Not fly? Why, look here!—look here!—look here!”—and at each “look here!” the squirrel was in a different tree, and still he went on jumping, or flying (which do you think it was?), from one to another, until very soon he was quite out of sight.
And he never came back—at least not whilst Tommy Smith was there. I think he must have come back at some time or other, to sit in his little summer-house again with his wife and children. But Tommy Smith had not time enough to wait for him; so, as soon as he was sure that he was really gone, he walked away to his friend the woodpigeon.