Much later that night, Mr Ted arrived all agitated and told me of the complete fiasco that had been this year's Teddy Bears' Picnic. Practically no one had shown up. No one that is apart from an old, arthritic badger who made excuses and left the party early and an untalkative, veteran hedgehog who just thanklessly ate all the homemade sandwiches and cakes that had been oh so carefully laid out.
"One after the other down the ole pie hole" as he put it. "I don't know where the little fella put them all. Never again" he said, "Never!"
Ted then suddenly pointed behind to the unconscious, stuffed hedgehog who it seems had followed him home too, and growled bear-like, adding, "I really hate hedgehogs."
I urged him to calm himself down. It was over for another year and he couldn't change things now. He hardly ever growled either. I asked him why on closer inspection the hedgehog had seemingly a black eye. However, It was hard to be certain of this as it was partially curled into a ball.
"Well, I had to rough him up a bit. He was asking for it."
Personally, I think the hedgehog came off the better judging by the state of Mr Ted's paws, but I wasn't going to tell him that and as for unconscious, it was more like sleeping off the effects of the picnic feast. I'm sure it wasn't simply my imagination when I heard it smack its lips and snore.
@jgoldrup True, yet greed, selfishness hardly deserve respect either and Mr Ted likes to boast, but I doubt he did any harm. I used to have a Jack Russell that used to find hegdehogs when they wandered into the back garden. He used to bark at them with a different bark to a normal bark. It would be this weird bark and then be followed by a perplexed yelp as he spiked his nose. No hedgehogs were ever harmed. :)