hedgehog would have eaten him instead of outwitting him. As it was, he
placed himself and Mrs. Hedgehog at opposite ends of the course. The
hare started on one side of the hedge and the hedgehog on the other.
Away went the hare like the wind, but Mr. Hedgehog took three steps and
went back to his place. When the hare reached his end of the hedge, Mrs.
Hedgehog, from the other side, called out, 'I'm here already.' Her voice
and her coat were very like her husband's, and the hare was not
observant enough to remark a slight difference of size and colour. The
moral of which is, my dear children, that one must use his 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
Encyclopædia 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