or the cat to
make the next move--if she chose. He did not care. All things were
one to him, and all the views which he presented to the world were
points, a _cheval-de-frise_, a coiled ball of barbed wire, a living
Gibraltar, what you will, but, anyway, practically impregnable; and the
beggar knew it. "He who believeth doth not make haste"--that seemed to
be his motto, and he had, by the same token, a fine facility for
withstanding a siege.

He felt the cat, that cat who did not know hedgehogs, pat him
tentatively. Then he heard her swearing softly and tensely at the
painful result. She did not pat again--at least, only once, and, in
spite of care, that hurt her worse than ever. Then she began growling,
low and beastily--for all the cat tribe have a horrible growl; you may
have noticed it. Perhaps the hedgehog smiled. I don't know. He knew
that growl, anyhow; had heard it before--the anger of utter
exasperation. He was an exasperating brute, too, for he never said
anything, only shut himself up, and let others do the arguing, if they
were fools enough to do so.

Suddenly he heard the growl stop. Followed a tense pause, during which
he tightened his back-muscles under his spines, and tucked himself in,
to meet any coming shock, more tightly than ever. Followed the pause a
short warning hiss, jerked out almost in fright, it seemed--that cat's
hiss that is only a bluff, and meant to imitate a snake--a sudden
explosion of snarls, and a thud. A fractional silence, then a perfect
boil-over of snarls, and thud upon thud.

Now, our friend hedgehog was an old hand, and he had heard many and
curious sounds take place outside himself, so to speak; but, all the
same, he was just tickled to death to know what, in claws and whiskers,
was happening out there in the leering moonlight now; so much so,
indeed, that at last he risked it, and took a furtive peep out of a
chink in himself, as it were. And what he saw might have amazed him,
if he had not been a hedgehog and scarcely ever amazed at anything. He
just got a snapshot view of the cat's fine ringed tail whirling round
and round as she balanced herself on the swerve, vanishing into the
ghostly moonlight haze of the night; and in front of him, close beside
him, squatting, stare-eyed and phlegmatic, he saw the form of a big,
gaunt, old doe-rabbit. And I think he knew what had happened. He
seemed to, anyway, and remained rolled up.

Rabbits are thoughtless, head