my life doing good?"

"Yes, you rascal!" said Bevis, putting a pinch of powder on the
touch-hole, "you know you are a wicked story-teller; you killed the poor
leveret after I let you loose. Now!" and he went down on one knee, and
put his cannon-stick on the other as a rest to keep it straight.

"Wait a minute," said the weasel, "just listen to me a minute. I assure
you----"

"No; I sha'n't listen to you," said Bevis, striking his match.

"Oh," said the weasel, kneeling down, "if you will only wait one second,
I will tell you all the wickedness I have committed. Don't, please, kill
me before I have got this load of guilt off my mind."

"Well, make haste," said Bevis, aiming along his cannon.

"I will," said the weasel; "and first of all, if you are going to kill
me, why don't you shoot the thrush as well, for she is ever so much more
wicked and cruel than I have been?"

"Oh, what a dreadful story!" said the thrush. "How can you say so?"

"Yes, you are," said the weasel. "Sir Bevis, you remember the two snails
you found in the garden path--those you put on a leaf, and watched to
see which could crawl the fastest?"

"I remember," said Sir Bevis. "But you must make haste, or my match will
burn out."

"And you recollect that the snails had no legs and could not walk, and
that they had no wings and could not fly, and were very helpless
creatures?"

"Yes, I remember; I left them on the path."

"Well, directly you left them, out came this great ugly speckled thrush
from the shrubbery--you see how big the thrush is, quite a monster
beside the poor snails; and you see what long legs she has, and great
wings, and such a strong, sharp beak. This cruel monster of a thrush
picked up the snails, one at a time, and smashed them on the stones, and
gobbled them up."

"Well," said the thrush, much relieved, "is that all? snails are very
nice to eat."

"Was it not brutally cruel?" asked the weasel.

"Yes, it was," said Bevis.

"Then," said the weasel, "when you shoot me, shoot the thrush too."

"So I will," said Bevis, "but how can I hit you both?"

"I will show you," said the weasel. "I will walk along the bank till I
am just in a line with the thrush's nest, and then you can take aim at
both together."

So he went along the bank and stopped behind the nest, and Bevis moved
his cannon-stick and took another aim.

"Dear me!" cried the thrush, dreadfully alarmed, "you surely are not
going to shoot me? I never did a