“Humph! I think so!” said Bruin, smiling grimly. “He seemed quite satisfied, I thought.”
“Tell us about his visit!” cried Toto eagerly. “I have never heard anything about him, and I know it must be funny, or you would not chuckle so, Bruin.”
“Well,” said the bear, “there isn’t much to tell, but you shall hear all I know. I call that hermit, if that is his name, a very impudent fellow. Just fancy this, will you? One evening, late in the autumn, about three years ago, I was coming home from a long ramble, very tired and hungry. I had left a particularly nice comb of honey and some other little things in my cave, all ready for supper, for I knew when I started that I should be late, and I was looking forward to a very comfortable evening.
“Well, when I came to the door of my cave, what should I see but an old man with a long gray beard, sitting on the ground eating my honey!” Here the bear looked around with a deeply injured air, and there was a general murmur of sympathy.
“Your course was obvious!” said the raccoon. “Why didn’t you eat him, stupid?”
“Hush!” whispered the wood-pigeon softly. “You must not say things like that, Coon! you will frighten the old lady.” And indeed, the grandmother seemed much discomposed by the raccoon’s suggestion.
“Wouldn’t have been polite!” replied Bruin. “My own house, you know, and all that. Besides,” he added in an undertone, with an apprehensive glance at the grandmother, “he was old, and probably very—”
“Ahem!” said Toto in a warning voice.
“Oh, certainly not!” said the bear hastily, “not upon any account. I was about to make the same remark myself. A—where was I?”
“The old man was eating your honey,” said the woodchuck.