“Dear! Dear!” said the King, as they all ran to help poor Bobtail. “I am so sorry, but you see mice like cheese almost as much as I do, and so I have to set traps everywhere. Now you shall have a peep from my Look-Out-Window,” he continued, taking Bobtail by the paw.
Far, far below they could see the great round earth looking like a little ball, but it made them all so dizzy, that they did not look very long.
“Do you never get sleepy?” asked Mrs. Gray-Squirrel.
“Not very often,” answered the Moon King. “There are times when I can watch with one eye, and then I have taught the other eye to go to sleep.”
“I thought you had a dog?” said Mr. Bunnikins-Bunny.
“I did have a very fine yellow dog, but alas, I lost him long ago,” and the King, with a sigh, wiped away a tear. “His name was Ebenezer, but we called him Sneezer for short, because he was so fond of mouse patties flavored with pepper, which made him sneeze. He was always chasing cats. One day he heard one miaow, and jumping on the ledge of my Great Window, he slipped and fell out, I don’t know where.
“Since then, however, so many yellow dogs have been seen on the Island of Sirius, that it is now called the Dog Star, and I believe that Sneezer landed there.”