"Well," said Coon, "there was a piece left. I couldn't eat any more, so I put it away in the cupboard, thinking I would have it for lunch to-day. It was a lovely piece. I never saw such a squash pie as that was, anyhow, and that piece—"
He paused, and seemed lost in the thought of the pie.
"Well!" exclaimed Toto. "So you did eat it for your lunch, and now you are unhappy because you didn't keep it for dinner. Is that it?"
"Not at all!" replied the other, "not at all! I trust I am not greedy, Toto, whatever my faults may be. I went to get it for my luncheon, for I had been working all the morning like a—"
"Dormouse!"
"Tree-toad!"
"Grasshopper!" murmured the squirrel, the bear, and Toto, simultaneously.
"Like a raccoon!" he continued severely. "I can say no more than that; and I was desperately hungry. I went to the cupboard to get my piece of pie, and it was—gone!"
"Gone!" exclaimed the grandmother; "why, who can have taken it?"
"That is the point, Madam!" said Coon. "It was some small creature, for it got in through the crack under the cupboard door, gnawing away the wood. I have examined the marks," he added, "and they are the marks of small, very sharp teeth." And he looked significantly at the squirrel.