step, Mr. Dog! Dance, Mr. Dog; dance!"

MR. RABBIT'S UNWELCOME COMPANY

MR. POLECAT MAKES A MORNING CALL AND MR. DOG DROPS IN

"I think I shall have to tell you about Mr. Polecat," said the Story
Teller, "and about his visit to Mr. Rabbit."

"Who's Mr. Polecat?" said the Little Lady. "You never told me about him
before."

"Well, no, because you see Mr. Polecat is so queer in some of his ways
that people even don't talk about him a great deal. He is really quite a
nice gentleman, though, when he doesn't get excited. But when he does he
loses friends.

"The trouble is with the sort of perfumery he uses when he gets excited,
just as some people use a smelling bottle, and nobody seems to like the
sort Mr. Polecat uses except himself. I suppose he must like it or he
wouldn't be so free with it. But other people go away when he uses
it--mostly in the direction the wind's blowing from--and in a hurry, as
if they were afraid they'd miss a train. Even Mr. Dog doesn't stop to
argue with Mr. Polecat. Nobody does, and all the other deep woods people
do their best to make him happy and to keep him in a good humor
whenever he comes about, and give him their nicest things to eat and a
lot to carry home with him, so he'll start just as soon as possible.

"But more than anything they try to keep him from saying anything about
Mr. Dog or hinting or even thinking about Mr. Dog, for when he does any
of these things he's apt to get excited, and then sometimes he opens up
that perfume of his and his friends fall over each other to get out of
reach. They're never very happy to see him coming, and they're always
glad to see him go, even when he's had a quiet visit and goes pretty
soon, which is just what didn't happen one time when he came to call on
Jack Rabbit, and it's that time I'm going to tell about.

"Mr. Rabbit looked out his door one morning and there was Mr. Polecat,
all dressed up, coming to see him. He wasn't very far off, either, and
Mr. Rabbit hardly had time to jerk down a crayon picture of Mr. Dog that
he'd made the day before, just for practice. He pushed it under the bed
quick, and when Mr. Polecat came up he bowed and smiled, and said what a
nice day it was, and that he'd bring a chair outside if Mr. Polecat
would like to sit there instead of coming in where it wasn't so
pleasant.

"But Mr. Polecat said he guessed he'd come in, as it was a little chilly
and he didn't feel very well anyway. So he came insid