Arrived at the hutch, Excalibur wagged his tail and contemplated the rabbit with his usual air of vacuous benevolence. The rabbit made not the faintest response, but continued to munch green feed, twitching its nose in a superior manner. Finally, when it could endure Excalibur's admiring inspection and hard breathing no longer, it turned its back and retired into its bedroom.
Excalibur's next call was usually at the butcher's shop, where he was presented with a specially selected and quite unsalable fragment of meat. He then crossed the road to the baker's, where he purchased a halfpenny bun, for which his escort was expected to pay. After that he walked from shop to shop, wherever he was taken, with great docility and enjoyment; for he was a gregarious animal and had a friend behind or underneath almost every counter in the village. Men, women, babies, kittens, even ducks--they were all one to him.
At one time Eileen had endeavored to teach him a few simple accomplishments, such as begging for food, dying for his country, and carrying parcels. She was unsuccessful in all three instances. Excalibur on his hind legs stood about five feet six, and when he fell from that eminence, as he invariably did when he tried to beg, he usually broke something. He was hampered, too, by inability to distinguish one order from another. More than once he narrowly escaped with his life through mistaking an urgent appeal to come to heel out of the way of an approaching automobile for a command to die for his country in the middle of the road.
As for educating him to carry parcels, a single attempt was sufficient. The parcel in question contained a miscellaneous assortment of articles from the grocer's, including lard, soap, and safety matches. It was securely tied up, and the grocer kindly attached it by a short length of string to a wooden clothespin, in order to make it easier for Excalibur to carry. They set off home.
Excalibur was most apologetic about it afterward, besides being extremely unwell; but he had no idea, he explained to Eileen, that anything put into his mouth was not meant to be eaten. He then tendered the clothespin and some mangled brown paper, with an air of profound abasement. After that no further attempts at compulsory education were undertaken.