taken them, for the first time in their lives, to give them a lesson in
swimming. Sometimes one of the grave looking gentlemen in the bank,
either for amusement, or in search of food, would leap, or rather
_tumble_, from the mouth of his hole, into the water, and dive at once
to the bottom, with the greatest ease imaginable; but he could not
remain under much more than a minute at a time, for want of breath.
When he came up again to the surface, Brush was exceedingly surprised
to see that, instead of appearing wet and miserable, like poor little
Gotobed after his ducking, his hair was as dry as if he had never been
into the water at all.

"How delightful it must be to dive and swim about like that!" said the
squirrel to himself, and he could hardly help jumping in to try his
skill, forgetting that he was not formed for moving through the water,
but for running and leaping about among the branches of trees. I wonder
how he would have managed his bushy tail in swimming, and how funny it
would have looked with the long hair all wet and sticking together!
Perhaps he thought of this himself. At any rate, he did not jump into
the water just then, but remained looking down from his hiding-place in
the willow-tree, very much pleased with what he had hitherto seen of
these clever divers and swimmers.

"Well," said he to himself, "they don't eat their own young ones, that
is clear enough; but how they might treat any other small animal that
came in their way I cannot possibly tell. And yet the great old rat
that frightened poor Gotobed so terribly, behaved very well, I am sure;
but then perhaps he was not hungry just then, and only asked him to
come again and be taught to swim that he might make a meal of him
another time. So I won't have anything to say to them just yet. Perhaps
if I wait here a little longer, I may see something that will decide
the matter."

And the matter _was_ decided, sooner than Brush expected. At a little
distance from the water-rats' station, he now perceived a most singular
looking animal, which was quite a stranger to him, though he had a
pretty large acquaintance among his neighbours. It was about the size
of a common mouse, but of a deep velvety black above, and white
underneath, and its nose was very long and pointed, like the snout of
a pig. His eyes were very small indeed, and looked like little black
beads deeply set in his head.

This curious, but beautiful little animal behaved exactly li