pe of
sand going down to that hollow place!"

"Yes."

"Rabbits, and blackberries. Such fine ones when they're ripe! And just
beyond there, at the sandy patch at the edge of the wood, snakes!--big
ones, too. I'm going to catch one and stuff it."

"But can you?"

"I should think so--badly, you know, but I'm getting better. I had to
find all this out that I'm telling you, but perhaps you don't care about
it, and want to go back to the cricket-field?"

"No, no," I cried; "I do like it."

"That's right. If we went back we should only have to bowl for old
Eely. Everybody has to bowl for him, and he thinks he's such a dabster
with the bat, but he's a regular muff. Never carried the bat out in his
life. Like hedgehogs?"

"Well, I don't know," I said. "They're so prickly."

"Yes; but they can't help it, poor things. There's lots about here.
Wish we could find one now, we'd take it back and hide it in old Eely's
bed. I don't know though, it wouldn't be much fun now, because he'd
know directly that I did it. I say, you never saw a dog with a
hedgehog. Did you?"

"No," I said.

"It's the finest of fun. Piggy rolls himself up tight like a ball, and
Nip,--that's Magg's dog, you know,--he tries to open him, and pricks his
nose, and dances round him and barks, but it's no good, piggy knows
better than to open out. I've had three. Magg gets them for me. He
told me for sixpence how he got them."

"And how's that?" I said, eager to become a master in all this
woodcraft.

"Why, you catch a hedgehog first."

"Yes," I said, "but how?"

Mercer looked at me, and rubbed his ear.

"Oh, that is only the first one," he said hurriedly.

"But you must know how to catch the first one first."

"Oh, I say, don't argue like that. It is like doing propositions in
Euclid. You have to begin with one hedgehog, that's an axiom. Then you
take him in your pocket."

"Doesn't it prick?" I said.

"Oh, I don't know. How you keep interrupting! And you go out at night
when it's full moon, and then go and sit down on a felled tree right in
the middle of an open place in the wood. You get a bit of stick, a
rough bit, and take hold of piggy's foot and rub his hind leg with the
stick."

"But suppose he curls up," I said.

"Oh, bother! Don't! How am I to tell you? You mustn't let him curl
up. You rub his hind leg with the stick, and then he begins to sing."

"Oh, come!" I said, bursting out laughing.

"Well,