Painted Jaguar.

'Son, son!' said his mother ever so many times, graciously waving
her tail, 'by the prickles in your paddy-paw I see that that must
have been a Hedgehog. You should have dropped him into the water.

'I did that to the other thing; and he said he was a Tortoise,
and I didn't believe him, and it was quite true, and he has dived
under the turbid Amazon, and he won't come up again, and I
haven't anything at all to eat, and I think we had better find
lodgings somewhere else. They are too clever on the turbid Amazon
for poor me!'

'Son, son!' said his mother ever so many times, graciously waving
her tail, 'now attend to me and remember what I say. A Hedgehog
curls himself up into a ball and his prickles stick out every
which way at once. By this you may know the Hedgehog.'

'I don't like this old lady one little bit,' said
Stickly-Prickly, under the shadow of a large leaf. 'I wonder
what else she knows?'

'A Tortoise can't curl himself up,' Mother Jaguar went on, ever
so many times, graciously waving her tail. 'He only draws his
head and legs into his shell. By this you may know the tortoise.'

'I don't like this old lady at all--at all,' said Slow-and-Solid
Tortoise. 'Even Painted Jaguar can't forget those directions.
It's a great pity that you can't swim, Stickly-Prickly.'