nk, now, fitches a fancy price when you can
catch 'em. They are a mighty scarce article now-a-days. But rabbits
ain't worth shucks. It is a job to skin 'em, they are so tender; and
they won't fetch nothing."

"How about musk-rats?"

"Got an eye to business, eh?"

"If I am lucky enough to catch one, I should like to sell the skin."

"Well, musquash pays if it is skun right."

"How is that? A skin is a skin, isn't it?"

"Yes; but a skin with the head on is one thing, and a skin with the head
off is another, as you will find out if you ever try it on."

"I shouldn't think that would make any difference."

"It does a heap. A quarter is the most you can get without the head."

"And with it?"

"Fifty cents for a big one."

"Is that so?"

"Well, it is."

"I am very glad you told me," said Bertie.

"It is a little thing worth knowing," returned Jack. "Never caught a
pole-cat, I take it."

"I never caught anything," said Bertie.

"Seen 'em?"

"I don't know that ever I did."

"Smelt 'em?"

Bertie confessed that he had no acquaintance whatever with the animal,
but mentioned that once they found a skunk in Charley's chicken-house
sucking eggs, and they killed it.

"Him's um," said Jack.

"Oh!"

"Didn't cook it, I suppose."

"Cook it!"

"Yes."

"What for?"

"Eat, of course."

Bertie could not conceal his disgust.

"You needn't turn up your nose at _him_," continued Jack. "Good eating
_he_ is. Tender as a sucking pig, and tastes so nigh like I'd stump
_you_ to tell the difference."

Jack was going to say "tender as a chicken," but he remembered the
calico and so avoided the use of the word.

"I am sure you are joking," declared Bertie.

"Not a bit of it," said Jack. "I wouldn't ask for a better dinner. The
critter is like some other folks, not half so bad as you try to make him
out. He has got a bad name, and that is the worst thing there is about
him."

"Except his odor."

"That's not so bad either after you get used to it."

"Ugh!"

"Musquash is no better, if they do pay a good price for it."

"Do they?"

"They do. To make scent of for the ladies. One of them little bags will
make gallons and gallons, they say. I know a man that buys all he can
get. There you are! A heap better off than you was before. I reckon
that trap will hold a musquash next time it catches one."

"Thank you," said Bertie.

"And if the spring don't happen to kill him, just touch him on the head
with a s