When I went to see Harry yesterday, after his meeting with the Woodland Bank, I couldn’t believe the sight of him. There he was, all dressed up, with his hair neatly combed and not an out of place spine in sight. I really didn’t know what to say. At least my reaction made him laugh. He put the kettle on to make us both a drink and then went off to change into something more comfortable. When he sat down he seemed very pleased with himself and in no hurry to tell me what had happened. He said he wanted to hear how I had got on the day before and we should wait for Nicole to come round before he shared his news. So I updated him on the visit to the dealer and explained we were no nearer to regaining the ring. It’s funny he didn’t seemed at all deterred by my news. He simply asked when I was going to try and see the little girl. I really hadn’t thought that I would be going to see her, for a start it means persuading me mistress to take me out in the car again and secondly what would I say when I got there? However, Harry wasn’t taking no for an answer so I said I would talk to Nicole and see what she thought.
When Nicole arrived, Harry barely gave her time to sit down before saying we were all going out. He still wouldn’t tell us what happened yesterday but led us instead along a path into the nearest bit of wood and right up to the door of the nearest branch of the Woodland Bank. “They should be expecting us” he said and rang the little bell. Nicole and I just looked at each other. A bespectacled hare opened the door and led us into a small room of the main trunk of the tree. “I will just need the two of you to sign, here and here.” The hare said addressing Nicole and me. Well we both chorused the obvious question “Why?” The hare seemed flustered and said perhaps he would just give us five minutes to ourselves. We both looked at Harry. So he explained that the Woodland Bank had never been offered money back before and they were quite overwhelmed by his wanting to make amends. They had therefore decided that half of the money would be set aside in a trust fund to help orphaned animals in this and the surrounding woods. It was to be used to help them with whatever they needed to make sure that they didn’t have to turn to crime. As for our signatures, well, they wanted all three of us to be the trustees together with the hare that had greeted us. After hearing my mistress talking about some of the ridiculous charges that her bank charges, it rather restored my faith in banks and of course we immediately agreed. It is amazing how things can change in such a short space of time.