"Oh, ho!" exclaimed the snake, sticking out his tongue, which was like a fork—in two parts. "I'm glad I happened to come this way." Then he wound his pointed tail around the handle of the basket, and hissed: "I am very fond of jam—especially in nice flaky tarts."
"Do you—do you happen to mean these tarts?" asked Jumpo, sort of sad-like.
"Indeed, I do," answered the snake, and then he stood upon the end of his tail on the cover of the basket and sang:
"Oh, I am happy, light and free,
Jam tarts are the things for me.
I eat them morning, noon and night,
For jam tarts, they are my delight."
Then that snake began to lift off the cover of the basket to get at the tarts, and Jumpo cried:
"But those are for Uncle Wiggily, if you please, Mr. Snake."
"Oh, what do I care?" asked the snake, most impolitely. "I will eat these tarts, and then I will eat you."
Well, of course Jumpo felt dreadfully on hearing that, and he was wondering how Uncle Wiggily would feel not to get the tarts, when, all of a sudden, the monkey boy thought of the sticky chestnut burr he still held.
"I'll fix that snake!" he cried. And then, just as the snake was going to eat the tarts Jumpo threw the sharp burr at the wiggly, crawly creature. The prickly stickers went into his skin, next to his forty-'leven ribs and land sakes goodness me and some roast peanuts! That snake was so tickled that he laughed and he sneezed and he coughed and splittered and spluttered, and he fell over backwards off the basket of jam tarts, turning a somersault.
Then Jumpo saw his chance. He made a grab for the basket and ran off with it before the snake had finished sneezing and laughing and coughing, and so the crawly creature couldn't catch him.