'No harm is intended,' said the Possum, and the Wombat added: 'Harm is as far from our thoughts as from the thoughts of angels.'
'Well, well,' said Bill, at length. 'I'll just glance at it first, to see what it's like.'
But the Possum shook his head. 'No, no, Bill,' he said, 'no glancing,' and the Wombat added: 'To prove that no deception is intended, all heads must look in the bag together.'
'What's to be done about this astoundin' predicament?' said Bill. 'If there is a present, of course we may as well have it. If there ain't a present, of course we shall simply have to punch their snouts as usual.'
'One must confess,' said Bunyip Bluegum, 'to the prompting of a certain curiosity as to the nature of this present'; and Sam added, 'Anyway, there's no harm in having a look at it.'
'No harm whatever,' said the Possum, and he held the bag open invitingly. The Puddin'-owners hesitated a moment, but the temptation was too strong, and they all looked in together. It was a fatal act. The Possum whipped the bag over their heads, the Wombat whipped a rope round the bag, and there they were, helpless.
The worst of it was that the Puddin', being too short to look in, was left outside, and the puddin'-thieves grabbed him at once and ran off like winking. To add to the Puddin'-owners' discomfiture there was a considerable amount of bran in the bag; and, as Bill said afterwards, 'if there's anything worse than losing a valuable Puddin', it's bran in the whiskers'. They bounded and plunged about, but soon had to stop that on account of treading on each other's toes—especially Sam's, who endured agonies, having no boots on.
'What a frightful calamity,' groaned Bill giving way to despair.