himself
and tried to grab the rabbit by the ears.

"Here! That will never do!" cried the porcupine, and then and there,
without even stopping to take off his necktie, that brave creature stuck
twenty-seven and a half stickery-stockery-stackery quills into the snake,
and then that snake was glad enough to crawl away. Oh, my, yes, and a
basketful of soap bubbles besides!

Well, it wasn't long after that before it was dinner time, and the two
friends sat down in a place where there were a lot of toadstools to eat
their lunch. They sat on the low toadstools, and the higher ones they used
for tables, each one having a toadstool table for himself, just like in a
restaurant.

"Now, this is what I call real jolly," said the porcupine, as he ate his
third piece of hickory-nut pie with carrot sauce on it.

"Yes, it is real nice," said the rabbit. "After all, it isn't so bad to go
hunting for your fortune when you have company, but it's not so much fun
all alone."

Well, the two friends were just finishing their meal, and they were
getting ready to travel on, when, all at once, there was a terrible
crashing sound in the bushes, just as if some one was breaking them all to
pieces.

"My! What's that?" asked the porcupine, preparing to pull out some more of
his stickery-ickery quills.

"It sounds like the elephant," said the rabbit, as he looked around for a
safe place in which to hide in case it should happen to be the bear coming
after him.

"Oh, if it's the elephant, we don't have to worry. He is a friend of
ours," said the porcupine.

Well, the crashing in the bushes still kept up, and then before you could
tickle your pussy cat under the chin-chopper, there burst out of the
middle of a prickly briar bush a great big alligator--the same one who
once before had tried to catch Uncle Wiggily.

"Oh, look!" cried the porcupine. "He's after us."

"Indeed, I am!" exclaimed the 'gator. "I'll have a fine meal in about a
minute. I'll pull all your quills out, and eat you with strawberry sauce
on; prickly porcupine."

"Oh, don't you let him do it!" cried Uncle Wiggily. "Stick some of your
quills in him, and make him go away, Mr. Porcupine."

"It wouldn't do any good," said the porcupine. "You see, the alligator has
such a thick skin on him that even a bullet will hardly go through, so my
quills won't hurt him. I guess we had better run away."

Well, they started to run away, but the 'gator, with his skillery-scalery
tail,