eyes as well
as his legs in this world. The hare tried several runs, but there was
always a hedgehog at the goal when he got there. So he gave in at last,
and our ancestors walked comfortably home, taking the louis d'or and the
bottle of brandy with them."

"What is a louis d'or?" cried three of my children; and "What is
brandy?" asked the other four.

"I smell valerian," said I; on which they poked out their seven noses,
and I ran at them with my spines, for a father who is not an
Encyclopaedia on all fours must adopt _some_ method of checking the
inquisitiveness of the young.

When grown-up people desire information or take an interest in their
neighbours, this, of course, is another matter. Mrs. Hedgehog and I had
never seen tinkers, and we resolved to take an early opportunity some
evening of sending the seven urchins down to the burdock plantations to
pick snails, whilst we paid a cautious visit to the tinker camp.

But mothers are sad fidgets, and anxious as Mrs. Hedgehog was to gratify
her curiosity, she kept putting off our expedition till the children's
spines should be harder; so I made one or two careful ones by myself,
and told her all the news on my return.

CHAPTER III.

"The animal Man," so I have heard my uncle, who was a learned hedgehog,
say,--"the animal man is a diurnal animal; he comes out and feeds in the
daytime." But a second cousin, who had travelled as far as Covent
Garden, and who lived for many years in a London kitchen, told me that
he thought my uncle was wrong, and that man comes out and feeds at
night. He said he knew of at least one house in which the crickets and
black-beetles never got a quiet kitchen to themselves till it was nearly
morning.

But I think my uncle was right about men in the country. I am sure the
tinker and his family slept at night. He and his wife were out a great
deal during the day. They went away from the wood and left the children
with an old woman, who was the tinker's mother. At one time they were
away for several days, and about my usual time for going out the
children were asleep, and the old woman used to sit over the camp fire
with her head on her hands.

"The language of men, my dear," I observed to Mrs. Hedgehog, "is quite
different to ours, even in general tone; but I assure you that when I
first heard the tinker's mother, I could have wagered a louis d'or and a
bottle of brandy that I heard hedgehogs whining to each other. In fact,
I