e, as she was bidden.

"I must imagine I have given up school, and taken to private pupils,"
the Badger said to himself. "I hope she won't exasperate me, and make
me lose my temper! Now take this slate," he continued aloud, "and try
and do one of these simple sums. You'll soon get used to them--

"If five onions were to be boiled in six saucepans, how would you
divide the onions so that there would be exactly the same quantity in
each pan?"

"Chop them up," replied the housekeeper promptly.

The Badger glared. "You're not attending. I said, 'How would you
_divide_ them!'"

"You might mince them very fine, or pound them in a mortar," replied
the housekeeper anxiously. "I don't know of no other way of doing it."

"Work it out on the slate, creature!--on the _slate_!" cried Herr
Badger, thumping the table with his long ruler.

"I'd rather do it on a dish, sir," said the housekeeper, trembling.
"It's more what I'm accustomed to."

Herr Badger started up in a fury. "_You_ call yourself a private
pupil?" he shouted (quite forgetting that the housekeeper had never
called herself anything of the kind). "Go back to the kitchen
immediately."

"I could bring you the Mole who blacks the boots, if _he'd_ be any
good," said the housekeeper humbly. "I know I'm very ignorant, but the
Mole tells me he's been attending day school for years, and he reads
recipes out of the cookery-book quite beautiful."

"Don't speak to me of Moles!" said the Badger crossly. "I shall take
no more private pupils--they're not worth it." And he walked over to
the black-board, and began to draw diagrams.

"What's the good of diagrams, without a class to explain them to?" he
muttered. "I declare I believe I _was_ too hard on those children. We
can't be all equally gifted. It wouldn't be a bad idea if I went out
as one of the search parties. I declare I _will_!" he continued, his
face brightening, "and I'll make every creature I find promise to come
back to school again. I must make up a class somehow, or I shall die
of monotony."

He took down his old felt hat with the ear-flaps, and putting some
food in a knapsack, and choosing a stout walking-stick, he flung a
green cloak over his shoulders, and let himself out into the forest.

CHAPTER VI.

The Fox took the two little Bears on so quickly, that they soon began
to feel both cross and tired. To their anxious enquiries as to where
they were going, and whether they could not soon have some br