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IV

WHAT JOLLY DID BEST

Jolly Robin had something on his mind. For several days he had been turning a certain matter over in his head. But in spite of all his thinking, he seemed unable to find any answer to the question that was troubling him. So at last he decided he would have to ask somebody to help him.

And that was why Jolly stopped Jimmy Rabbit near the garden one day.

“I want your advice,” he told Jimmy Rabbit.

“Certainly!” that young gentleman replied. And he sat himself down upon his wheelbarrow and looked very earnest. “If 17 it’s anything about gardening,” he said, “I should advise you to raise cabbages, by all means.”

But Jolly Robin said he wasn’t thinking of planting a garden.

“In fact,” he explained, “the trouble is, I don’t know what to do. I’d like to have some regular work, you know. And since you’ve had a good deal of experience, having run a tooth-pulling parlor, a barber-shop, and a shoe-store, I thought you might be able to tell me what would be a good business for me to take up.”

For a few minutes Jimmy Rabbit did not speak. But he nodded his head wisely.