ill,' said the Possum, solemnly. 'If you only knew
what noble intentions we have, you'd be ashamed of them words.'

[Illustration]

'You'd blush to hear your voice a-utterin' of them,' said the Wombat.

'I can't make this out at all,' said Bill, scratching his head. 'The
idea of a puddin'-thief offering a man a present dumbfounds me, as the
saying goes.'

'No harm is intended,' said the Possum, and the Wombat added: 'Harm is
as far from our thoughts as from the thoughts of angels.'

'Well, well,' said Bill, at length. 'I'll just glance at it first, to
see what it's like.'

But the Possum shook his head. 'No, no, Bill,' he said, 'no glancing,'
and the Wombat added: 'To prove that no deception is intended, all heads
must look in the bag together.'

'What's to be done about this astoundin' predicament?' said Bill. 'If
there is a present, of course we may as well have it. If there ain't a
present, of course we shall simply have to punch their snouts as
usual.'

'One must confess,' said Bunyip Bluegum, 'to the prompting of a certain
curiosity as to the nature of this present'; and Sam added, 'Anyway,
there's no harm in having a look at it.'

'No harm whatever,' said the Possum, and he held the bag open
invitingly. The Puddin'-owners hesitated a moment, but the temptation
was too strong, and they all looked in together. It was a fatal act. The
Possum whipped the bag over their heads, the Wombat whipped a rope round
the bag, and there they were, helpless.

[Illustration]

The worst of it was that the Puddin', being too short to look in, was
left outside, and the puddin'-thieves grabbed him at once and ran off
like winking. To add to the Puddin'-owners' discomfiture there was a
considerable amount of bran in the bag; and, as Bill said afterwards,
'if there's anything worse than losing a valuable Puddin', it's bran in
the whiskers'. They bounded and plunged about, but soon had to stop that
on account of treading on each other's toes--especially Sam's, who
endured agonies, having no boots on.

[Illustration]

'What a frightful calamity,' groaned Bill giving way to despair.

'It's worse than being chased by natives on the Limpopo River,' said
Sam.

'It's worse than fighting Arabs single-handed,' croaked Bill.

'It's almost as bad as being pecked on the head by eagles,' said Sam,
and in despair they sang in muffled tones--

'O what a fearful fate it is,
O what a frightful fag,
To have to walk about l