BILLY BUNNY
STORY XIX.
BILLY BUNNY AND TAILOR BIRD.
You remember in the last story somebody was knocking at the door of the Ragged Rabbit's castle, don't you? The Giant Rabbit, who always wore torn and tattered clothes because he had no wife to mend them and wouldn't pay his tailor's bills?
Well, who do you suppose was on the other side of that door? Just wait until the Giant Rabbit opens it and you shall see. Now open your eyes, if you have shut them, and see Uncle Lucky, as sure as I am writing this story and you are reading it.
Yes, sir. There stood the dear old gentleman rabbit, and oh, dear me, didn't he look worried? I suppose he thought he'd find Billy Bunny inside the giant. But when he saw Billy Bunny standing there, safe and sound and happy, with his popgun in his hand and a smile on his face, he began to laugh.
"Whew!" exclaimed the old gentleman rabbit, greatly relieved, which means to feel much better. "I'm glad to see you, my dear nephew. And also to make your acquaintance, Mr. Ragged Rabbit Giant. My name is Mr. Lucky Lefthindfoot. Howdy!" and he put out his right front paw and shook hands with the giant, who had to lean way down to reach Uncle Lucky's paw.
"But, goodness me!" said the old gentleman rabbit after looking at the giant for some moments, "you need a tailor. Let me call the Tailor Bird to mend your clothes. You are too nice a rabbit not to be well dressed."
And kind Uncle Lucky went to the telephone and told the Tailor Bird to bring a spool of thread a mile long and a needle as big as a spear for he had a giant customer for him with holes in his clothes as big as a circus ring. The Tailor Bird said he'd try to, but wouldn't promise unless he could send in a bill as big as a newspaper spread out flat.
"Will that be all right?" asked Uncle Lucky after he had explained matters to the ragged Giant Rabbit.
"Certainly," said the Giant Rabbit with a grin, "and tell him I'll pay him with a dollar bill as big as a Turkish rug or a crex carpet."
And then they all sat down and told funny stories, and Billy Bunny sang a song that went something like this, only much nicer, but I can't quite remember it all:
"Oh,
you're a raggerty, taggerty man,
In a castle big and old,
And I'm a Billy Bunny boy
With a heart that's brave and bold.
You can't scare me with your thunder laugh
Or your club like a telegraph pole,
So you'd better allow the Tailor Bird
To sew up each raggerty hole."
And then the Tailor Bird commenced and it took him until half-past fourteen o'clock to mend that Giant Rabbit's clothes. "I might just as well have made you a new suit," he said, as the last inch of the mile-long spool of thread was used up. "I declare I never had such a job before."
And I guess he spoke the truth, for I never met a Giant Rabbit in my tailor's shop, although I once had a giant bill from my tailor.
