STUBBS THE BADGER 
225 
no fighting trim. They retired to the draughty main 
tunnel, and slept there on the bare ground. 
The next evening the fox went out hunting, and 
when the badgers woke and gingerly investigated 
the dormitory, they found it empty. They immedi- 
ately took possession again, and sniffing fastidiously, 
dragged out the deep comfortable bedding which 
they had prepared against the winter ; for Stubbs 
hates anything which a fox has tainted. 
On his return Greybrush found the passage 
littered with moss and leaves, while porcine snoring 
resounded throughout the earth. The fox was too 
cunning to assail the badgers in their lair. He 
dug a hollow in the rabbit burrow and slept there, 
for he was not particular, and only desired some 
place to protect him from the weather ; but he 
had no intention of making an ' earth ' for himself 
if he could find one already made. 
But it certainly was annoying for the badgers, for 
Greybrush's ideas of cleanliness did not coincide with 
theirs. To find a rabbit's head or other refuse lying 
about, distressed them terribly, and night after night 
Stubbs delayed his hunting that he might scavenge 
the gallery where the fox slept. It is also one of the 
laws of the badger code that the nest shall be spring- 
cleaned twice a year: in March before the cubs 
are born, and in September, in preparation 
Q 
