Dog was unusually excited when she knocked on Hare’s door that day.
“Guess what!” she said, tail wagging at full speed. “Guess what! I’m going to be in a play! In the town!”
“That’s great,” said Hare, who hadn’t had a chance to guess after all. He had been going to guess that Ferret was going on vacation by himself for a while and wouldn’t be bothering Dog for rides. “Oh well, woulda been wrong anyway,” he said to himself. Hare loved guessing games.
“It’s going to be in the library,” said Dog, “Sally and Andy are both going to be in the play, and Andy said I can come too and play the part of the dog!”
“Do you have any lines?” asked Hare, mostly to be polite.
“I do, I do!” said Dog. “I have to say ‘grrr’ when Andy taps my foot one time, and ‘woof’ when he taps me two times. We’ve practiced it and everything. I’m going to go see Beaver to figure out what I’m REALLY going to say; the humans will just hear ‘grr’ and ‘woof’ either way, y’know.”
“Even Andy?” asked Hare. “You spend a lot of time with that boy; hasn’t he been able to learn to talk yet? Or even listen?”
“No,” said Dog, shaking her head sadly. “He’s just too dumb. They all are. But he’s my friend anyway. It’s cute the way they try so hard at things.”
“Can I come see your play?” asked Hare.
“Sort of,” said Dog. “It’s in a building in the town, and you might be too big to sneak in, Hare. But I’ve seen that building, and it’s got lots of windows, so you could stay outside and look in. And I bet you could hear everything just as well.”
“Huh?” said Hare, cupping his paw behind his ear, “what’s that you say?”
“Very funny,” said Dog.
“I had to try,” said Hare. “It might have really been funny.”
“I guess,” said Dog. “Anyway, Hare, I just wanted to tell you my news. I’m going over to Beaver’s to find some good lines.”
“Thanks for letting me know,” said Hare. “When is the play, and which building is it in?”
“It’s in a couple of days,” said Dog. “I’ll tell Magpie about it and she’ll let everybody know how to find the right building.”
“OK,” said Hare, “see you later, Dog.” But Dog was already trotting off to see Beaver.
Beaver was sitting outside in the sun when Dog arrived with her news. “Why yes, I can help you find something good to say,” he said. “Let’s go into my library and see what we can find.”
Once in the library, Beaver said “we have a lot of choices, Dog. Would you like to say something well known from a famous play? Something like ‘to be or not to be, that is the question’? Or maybe something from a notorious historical figure. Some of them are even dogs — Rufus is known for saying ‘I have not yet begun to chew’ — he’s the one who discovered dinosaur bones about a century ago. Then there’s Trixie, who said ‘give me liberty or on second thought, I just noticed those cookies; I’ll go out later.’ Everybody knows those. Or you could go with something more obscure. Not many know this, but Bear has a cousin who lives near a town down south. She once found a pile of fruit out in the back of a citrus grove and Bear says after she ate it all she declared ‘it was the best of limes, it was the worst of limes.’ I’ve always thought that had a nice ring to it.”
“Those are all good ideas,” said Dog thoughtfully. “I have two lines to say. The first one I have to say softly, because it’s supposed to sound like a growl to the people.The second one I can speak up more — they’ll just hear ‘woof.’”
“How about two quotes that go together, in that case?” said Beaver. “Remember that story about Blinken the horse? He was really well known for making speeches, back in the day, and also for not knowing how to count very high. There was that speech he made where he wanted to say ‘eleven years back,’ but he forgot the name of that number so he started ‘four more than seven years ago’.” Then later on in the same speech he said ‘all men have inflated egos,’ which is quite true, in my experience.”
“Mine too,” said Dog, “but it doesn’t seem like a very original thing to say.”
“Hey I know,” said Beaver, you remember the Tern family from over at the seashore?”
“You mean those three brothers, Hugh, Hairpin, and 3Point?”
“Precisely,” said Beaver. “Well wouldn’t you know it, but they came visiting a couple of weeks ago, and one of them — I think it was Hairpin — said something that might be a good thing for your loud line.”
“Okay, let me hear it.”
“He said ‘bah humbug’.”
“‘Bah humbug’? What the heck does that mean?”
“I don’t have any idea,” said Beaver, “I just thought it sounded good.”
“Hmmm,” said Dog. She tried saying ‘bah humbug’ a few times at different volumes, and finally nodded her head. “I like it,” she said. “‘Bah humbug’ it is. And for my growl line I think I want to go back to one you already mentioned: ‘it was the best of limes, it was the worse of limes’.”
“An excellent choice,” said Beaver. “Somehow I feel like those two are related, somehow.”
“How can they be related?” asked Dog. “Isn’t one from a bear and the other from a bird?”
“That is ostensibly the case,” said Beaver, “nevertheless I sense a certain connection.”
Dog considered it carefully. “Bah humbug,” said Dog.
