The raccoon threw a perturbed glance at the kettle, and then said in a tone which tried to be nonchalant, "Oh! the kettle is all right. It will get up, I suppose, when it feels like it. If it should ask me to help it, of course I would; but perhaps it may prefer the floor for a change. I—I often lie on the floor, myself," he added.
The squirrel stared. "What do you mean?" he said. "It isn't alive! Toto said it wasn't."
The raccoon beckoned him aside, and said in a low tone, "My good Cracker, Toto says a great many things, and no doubt he thinks they are all true. But he is a young boy, and, let me tell you, he does not know everything in the world. If that thing is not alive, why did it jump off its seat just at the critical moment, and pour hot water over the robber's legs?"
"Did it?" exclaimed the squirrel, much impressed.
"Yes, it did!" replied the raccoon, emphatically. "I saw it with these eyes. And I don't deny that it was a great help, Cracker, and that I was very glad the kettle did it. But see, now! when a creature has no more self-respect than to lie there for a quarter of an hour, with its head on the other side of the room, without making the smallest attempt to get up and put itself together again, why, I tell you frankly I don't feel much like assisting it. You never knew one of us to behave in that sort of way, did you, now?"
"N-n-no!" said Cracker, doubtfully. "But then, if any of us were to lose our heads, we should be dead, shouldn't we?"
"Exactly!" cried the raccoon, triumphantly. "And when that thing loses its head, it isn't dead. That's just the difference. It can go without its head for an hour! I've seen it, when Toto took it off—the head, I mean—and forgot to put it on again. I tell you, it just pretends to be dead, so that it can be taken care of, and carried about like a baby, and given water whenever it is thirsty. A secret, underhand, sly creature, I call it, and I sha'n't touch it to put its head on again!"
And that was all the thanks the kettle got for its pains.