"Well—it does and it doesn't," Jimmy replied. "I just stuck a brier into one of my eyes a few minutes ago and it hurt awful, then. But you'll be perfectly safe, so long as you don't touch us."
"How long does it last?" Fatty inquired.
"Probably we'll never get over it," Jimmy Rabbit said cheerfully. And his brother nodded his head, as much as to say, "That's so!"
Fatty Coon was just the least bit alarmed. He really thought that there was something the matter with their eyes. You see, though the Rabbit brothers' eyes were always pink (for they were born that way), he had never noticed it before. So Fatty thought it would be safer not to go too near them.
"Well, it's too bad," he told Jimmy. "I'm sorry. I wanted to play with you."
"Oh, that's all right!" Jimmy said. "We can play, just the same. I'll tell you what we'll play. We'll play—"
"Not barber-shop!" Fatty interrupted. "I won't play barber-shop, I never liked that game."
Jimmy Rabbit started to smile. But he turned his smile into a sneeze.
And he said—
"We'll play robber. You'll like that, I know. And you can be the robber.
You look like one, anyhow."
That remark made Fatty Coon angry. And he wished that Jimmy hadn't the pink-eye. He would have liked to make an end of him right then and there.