so hard
that his collar button fell out and it took him fifteen minutes and
half an hour to find it. And then he never would have if the
Jack-in-the-Box hadn't seen it first. And where do you suppose that
ex-as-per-a-ting, which means teasing, button was? You'd never guess,
so I'll have to tell you without asking you again.

It was in the old gentleman rabbit's waistcoat pocket where he kept
his gold watch and chain and pocket knife and pencil with a rubber on
the end and a toothpick.

"How did you see it pop into my pocket?" he asked the Jack-in-the-Box.
"I'll never tell you," said the Jack-in-the-Box, "but what does that
matter? You've found your collar button, and that's enough."

"If I come across your cousin Jack-in-the-Pulpit," said Uncle Lucky,
after he had buttoned up his collar and wound his watch, "I'll tell
him how kind you were to find my collar button for me," and then the
old gentleman rabbit took off his old wedding stovepipe hat and bowed
to the Jack-in-the-Box and drove away in the Luckmobile down the road,
and when he came to a bridge he said to his little nephew, "Do you
think we're on the right road?"

"I don't remember this bridge, do you?" And then a voice cried out,
"Don't be anxious, Mr. Lucky Lefthindfoot. This is the road to
Lettuceville.

"Keep right on after you cross the bridge until you come to a little
red schoolhouse and then turn to your left and then turn to your right
and if you don't get home until morning you've made a mistake."

"Thank you," said Uncle Lucky. "And if I make a mistake I'll come back
and give you a scolding," and after that they crossed the bridge, and
just as they came to the first turn in the road they heard a dreadful
loud noise in the woods close by.

"What's that?" asked Billy Bunny, and he turned up his left ear and
his coat collar so that he could hear better.

"It's an old friend of yours," answered a deep growly kind of a voice,
and before the two rabbits could wonder who it was their friend, the
good-natured bear jumped out of the bushes.

"Take me with you, please," he said, "for I've run a splinter in my
foot and it hurts me to walk." And in the next story you shall hear of
another adventure which the two little rabbits had.

STORY XXII.

BILLY BUNNY AND DR. DUCK.

You remember in the last story how the good-natured bear asked Billy
Bunny and Uncle Lucky to give him a ride in the Luckymobile because he
had run a splinter in his foo