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lying side by side.'

'Oh, that's the result of exercise,' said Slow-and-Solid. 'I've
noticed that your prickles seem to be melting into one another,
and that you're growing to look rather more like a pinecone, and
less like a chestnut-burr, than you used to.'

'Am I?' said Stickly-Prickly. 'That comes from my soaking in the
water. Oh, won't Painted Jaguar be surprised!'

They went on with their exercises, each helping the other, till
morning came; and when the sun was high they rested and dried
themselves. Then they saw that they were both of them quite
different from what they had been.

'Stickly-Prickly,' said Tortoise after breakfast, 'I am not what
I was yesterday; but I think that I may yet amuse Painted Jaguar.

'That was the very thing I was thinking just now,' said Stickly-
Prickly. 'I think scales are a tremendous improvement on
prickles--to say nothing of being able to swim. Oh, won't Painted
Jaguar be surprised! Let's go and find him.'

By and by they found Painted Jaguar, still nursing his paddy-paw
that had been hurt the night before. He was so astonished that he
fell three times backward over his own painted tail without
stopping.

'Good morning!' said Stickly-Prickly. 'And how is your dear
gracious Mummy this morning?'

'She is quite well, thank you,' said Painted Jaguar; 'but you
must forgive me if I do not at this precise moment recall your
name.'

'That's unkind of you,' said Stickly-Prickly, 'seeing that this
time yesterday you tried to scoop me out of my shell with your
paw.'

'But you hadn't any shell. It was all prickles,' said Painted
Jaguar. 'I know it was. Just look at my paw!'

'You told me to drop into the turbid Amazon and be drowned,' said
Slow-Solid. 'Why are you so rude and forgetful to-day?'

'Don't you remember what your mother told you?' said Stickly-
Prickly,--

'Can't curl, but can swim--
Stickly-Prickly, that's him!
Curls up, but can't swim--
Slow-Solid, that's him!'

Then they both curled themselves up and rolled round and round
Painted Jaguar till his eyes turned truly cart-wheels in his
head.

Then he went to fetch his mother.

'Mother,' he said, 'there are two new animals in the woods to-
day, and the one that you said couldn't swim, swims, and the one
that you said couldn't curl up, curls; and they've gone shares in
their prickles, I think, because both of them are scaly all over,
instead of one being smooth and the other very prickly; and,
besides that, they are rolling round and round in circles, and I
don't feel comfy.'

'Son, son!' said Mother Jaguar ever so many times, graciously
waving her tail, 'a Hedgehog is a Hedgehog, and can't be anything
but a Hedgehog; and a Tortoise is a Tortoise, and can never be
anything else.'

'But it isn't a Hedgehog, and it isn't a Tortoise. It's a little
bit of both, and I don't know its proper name.

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