lks. Mr. Weasel himself couldn't have moved
more quickly than the Professor did. I saw him twist his head as if to
get a better view, and then down he came faster than you could wink
your eye.

"Of course Cheeko's brother didn't have half a chance; he hadn't much
more than well begun to run when the Professor had him in his claws,
and oh me! oh my! how that squirrel did squeal! It wasn't any use to
howl after he'd just the same as coaxed the Professor to catch him,
and there wasn't a member of the club who didn't insist that he'd been
served exactly right.

"'If an animal is brave there isn't any need of his running around
telling people,' Mr. Crow said when the Professor and Cheeko's
brother had disappeared. 'But if he sticks his nose into danger just
for the sake of showing folks how clever he is he not only shows that
he is mistaken as to the meaning of the word brave, but has proven
himself very foolish.'

"You may believe it or not, but it's the solemn truth that there
wasn't one of the wood folk who felt sorry for Cheeko's brother, and
that's saying a good deal, for as a rule we're all broken up when
anything like that happens, especially when it is done right on the
club's premises.

"'Cheeko himself will come to just such an end, and for that you may
take my word,' Mr. Jay said as he straightened out his feathers, which
had been ruffled a good bit when he flew off so suddenly to get out of
the Professor's way.

"'We'll hope that the lesson he has just had will teach him to have
better sense in the future,' Mr. Crow replied, for the old fellow
always looks on the bright side of everything, and Mr. Jay added in an
angry tone:

"'But it won't and that you may depend on. I've lost all patience with
the Squirrel family. They go chattering and scolding around as if
they owned the whole of the big woods, and I've yet to see one of them
raise a paw toward helping a neighbor.'

"Before any one else could speak we heard a terrible noise among the
bushes and had no more than well hidden ourselves when up comes Mr.
Man's boy Tommy with one of those miserable slings on a forked stick,
and it went without saying that he had a lot of small stones in his
pocket ready to shoot at the first one of us, even including Mr. Crow,
who should show himself. Of course, he can't kill anything with such a
toy; but it is possible for him to hurt a fellow mighty bad, as I know
to my cost.

"Why, do you know, not a great while ago