had been well pummelled by a shoulder-hitting
baboon, because they insisted on voting for Douglas as the beariest
fellow on the ticket, and afterward met by their father, who gave them
another thrashing for daring to come out without leave, and dragged them
howling away. Stubtails ears were torn into ribbons, his head bleeding
in twenty places, and unfortunately no 'Balm of the Blooming Blossoms of
Gilead' to put on it, and, in short, the whole party looked as if they
had been at an Irish funeral and nearly been made 'cold corpuses'
themselves. After a long hunt, they at last found Titehugge stuck fast
where the fox had left him, and now the puzzle was to get him out. The
three brothers all tried in vain, and at last Grumpy-growly caught hold
of Titehugge's tail, Longclawse of Grumpy-growly's, Stubtail of
Longclawse's, and Bushyball of Stubtail's, and they all pulled and
tugged together; ouf! ouf! altogether now! one, two, three, Pop! out
came Titehugge, and out came his tail, too! and the five bears rolled
head over heels together in such a hurley-burley, that it was a long
time before they could get straight enough to start for home; and when
they _did_ get there, Grumpy-growly put up the big log again, and put a
big stone on top of that, and a hundred pound weight on top of that, and
_one_ of those home-made pies we used to have at boarding school on top
of _that_, which proved the heaviest of the lot, and if they ever
happened to get out of prison again, it is more than I know."

Thus ended the wonderful story of the five bears, which gave great
amusement to the hearers, and was pronounced "first rate." Pretty soon
after, they had a scrambling sort of tea, not quite as orderly as
dinner, for they were all tired out with the day's adventures; and about
seven o'clock, George, who, as I told you, was the oldest of the party,
sensibly proposed that the regiment should go "early to bed," on the
principle of the old maxim, and in order to be "early to rise," after
the example of real soldiers.

As they were not quite certain what were the usual ceremonies attendant
upon soldiers' retiring, Freddy undertook to "do the thing up brown," as
he said, in a novel and delightfully military manner. So, taking his
place about a dozen yards in advance of the camp, and standing as stiff
as a ramrod, just as he had seen the officers do at West Point, he
called out "Battalion, attention!"

At these words, the regiment strung themselv