5 The Terrible Tractors
As the sun rose the next morning, Boggis and Bunce and Bean were still digging. They had dug ahole so deep you could have put a house into it. But they had not yet come to the end of the foxes’
tunnel. They were all very tired and cross.
‘Dang and blast!’ said Boggis. ‘Whose rotten idea was this?’
‘Bean’s idea,’ said Bunce.
Boggis and Bunce both stared at Bean. Bean took another swig of cider, then put the flask¹ backinto his pocket without offering it to the others. ‘Listen,’ he said angrily, ‘I want that fox! I’m goingto get that fox! I’m not giving in till I’ve strung him up over my front porch, dead as a dumpling!’
‘We can’t get him by digging, that’s for sure,’ said the fat Boggis. ‘I’ve had enough of digging.’
Bunce, the little pot-bellied dwarf², looked up at Bean and said, ‘Have you got any more stupidideas, then?’
‘What?’ said Bean. ‘I can’t hear you.’ Bean never took a bath. He never even washed. As a result,his earholes were clogged³ with all kinds of muck and wax and bits of chewing-gum and dead fliesand stuff like that. This made him deaf. ‘Speak louder,’ he said to Bunce, and Bunce shouted back,‘Got any more stupid ideas?’
Bean rubbed the back of his neck with a dirty finger. He had a boil coming there and it itched⁴.
‘What we need on this job,’ he said, ‘is machines . . . mechanical shovels⁵. We’ll have him out in fiveminutes with mechanical shovels.’
This was a pretty good idea and the other two had to admit it.
‘All right then,’ Bean said, taking charge. ‘Boggis, you stay here and see the fox doesn’t escape.
Bunce and I will go and fetch our machinery⁶. If he tries to get out, shoot him quick.’
The long, thin Bean walked away. The tiny Bunce trotted

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