“Certainly not. I haven’t said it was,” replied the stranger, still speaking politely. “I am not in the least interested. Besides, I know anyway. I know that she doesn’t know. I know that you have run away, and I know that you have some bitter lessons to learn before you will be fitted to live by yourself in the Great World. If you will just step aside, I will be much obliged. There is a big piece of bark just back of you under which there may be some fat beetles.”
This is, you’ll find, the law of fate: Regrets are always just too late.
Sammy Jay had followed Boxer, for he felt sure that things were bound to happen wherever that little Bear was. So Sammy saw his meeting with Jimmy Skunk. He saw how polite Jimmy was and how very impolite the little Bear was.
Sammy understood perfectly. He knew that probably Boxer knew nothing at all about Jimmy Skunk and never had heard of that little bag of scent carried by Jimmy and dreaded by all of Jimmy’s neighbors. He knew that the little Bear was rude, simply because he was so much bigger than Jimmy Skunk that he could see no reason for being polite, especially as Jimmy had asked him to do something he didn’t want to do.
When Jimmy Skunk began to lose patience, Sammy Jay thought it was time for him to give Boxer a little advice. “Don’t be silly! Do as Jimmy Skunk tells you to, or you will be the sorriest little Bear that ever lived!” screamed Sammy, as he saw Jimmy’s great plume of a tail begin to go up, which is Jimmy’s signal of danger.
But Boxer, foolish little Bear that he was, couldn’t see anything to fear from one so much smaller than he. So he paid no attention to Jimmy’s request that he step aside. Instead he laughed in the most impudent way.
Boxer didn’t move. Jimmy Skunk stamped angrily with his front feet. Then something happened. Yes, sir, something happened. It was so sudden and so unexpected that Boxer didn’t know exactly what had happened, but he was very much aware that it _had_ happened. Something was in his eyes and made them smart and for a few minutes blinded him. Something was choking him; it seemed to him he could hardly breathe. And there was the most awful odor he ever had smelled.
Boxer rolled over and over and over on the ground. He was trying to get away from that awful odor. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t, for the very good reason that he carried it along with him. You see, Jimmy Skunk had punished that silly little Bear by throwing on him a little of that powerful scent he always carries with him to use in time of danger or when provoked.