But Nutkin, who had no respect, began to dance up and down, tickling old Mr. Brown with a nettle and singing—
"Old Mr. B! Riddle-me-ree!
Hitty Pitty within the wall,
Hitty Pitty without the wall;
If you touch Hitty Pitty,
Hitty Pitty will bite you!"
Mr. Brown woke up suddenly and carried the mole into his house.
He shut the door in Nutkin's face. Presently a little thread of blue smoke from a wood fire came up from the top of the tree, and Nutkin peeped through the key-hole and sang—
"A house full, a hole full!
And you cannot gather a bowl-full!"
The squirrels searched for nuts all over the island and filled their little sacks.
But Nutkin gathered oak-apples—yellow and scarlet—and sat upon a beech-stump playing marbles, and watching the door of old Mr. Brown.
