Benny Badger began to lose patience with the deer mouse. He was one of the most timid persons Benny had ever seen. And Benny was on the point of telling him that he hadn\'t even the courage of a prairie dog.

But suddenly a new idea flashed into his head. He thought he knew what was troubling Mr. Deer Mouse.

"When I asked you to join me at breakfast I didn\'t mean what you thought I did," Benny announced. "You thought—didn\'t you?—that I meant to breakfast on you."[110]

Mr. Deer Mouse admitted faintly that he had had some such notion.

"How ridiculous!" Benny Badger cried. "Why, you\'re so quick that I could chase you all day—and all night, too—without catching you. You\'re too spry for me. So we might as well put such an idea out of our minds."

Benny Badger sighed as he spoke. And he couldn\'t help noticing, once more, how very, very plump Mr. Deer Mouse was.

"What I meant by your joining me at a good meal was simply this," he continued: "If you\'ll only stay with me, and follow me quietly wherever I go, there\'s a good chance that you\'ll have a bone to gnaw before a great while."

All that seemed very pleasant to the deer mouse.

"Thank you ever so much!" he murmured. "I\'ll be glad to accept your invi[111]tation, so long as we aren\'t going to breakfast inside your new home."

So they set out. And for a time Mr. Deer Mouse followed Benny Badger all around the neighborhood.

Though Benny kept a sharp watch on all sides, he couldn\'t see anything—or anybody—that promised a meal. And he decided at last that he would have to make a change of some sort in his plans.

So he sat down and beckoned to Mr. Deer Mouse to move nearer.

"You go ahead of me, and I\'ll follow you," he said. "You\'re smaller than I am, and perhaps you won\'t frighten the game the way I do."

Mr. Deer Mouse did not seem to care for the suggestion.

"You might make a mistake," he objected. "If I went ahead of you, you might think that I was the game. And[112] there might be a terrible accident."

Benny Badger sniffed.

"Nonsense!" he cried. "If I did make such a mistake, I promise you that I wouldn\'t let it happen more than once."

But the deer mouse proved to be a stubbo............