Sammy Jay stopped and carefully brushed his handsome blue coat, for Sammy Jay is something of a dandy. He appeared not to have heard Peter Rabbit.
"Sammy Jay, are you deaf?" inquired Peter Rabbit.
Now of course Sammy Jay had seen Peter Rabbit and Johnny Chuck all the time, but he looked up as if very much surprised to find them there.
"Oh, hello, Peter Rabbit!" said Sammy Jay. "Did you speak to me?"
"No, oh, no," replied Peter Rabbit in disgust. "I was talking to myself, just thinking out loud. I was wondering how many nuts a Jay could steal if he had the chance."
Johnny Chuck chuckled and Sammy Jay looked foolish. He couldn't find a word to say, for he knew that all the little meadow people knew how he once was caught stealing Happy Jack's store of nuts.
"I asked what all that fuss over in the big pine is about," continued Peter Rabbit.
"Oh," said Sammy Jay, "my cousin, Blacky the Crow, found Hooty the Owl asleep over there, and now he and his aunts and his uncles and his cousins are having no end of fun with him. You know Hooty the Owl cannot see in the daytime very well, and they can do almost anything to him that they want to. It's great sport."
"I don't see any sport in making other people uncomfortable," said Johnny Chuck.
"Nor I," said Peter Rabbit. "I'd be ashamed to own a cousin like Blacky the Crow. I like people who mind their own affairs and leave other people alone."