“I shall,” answered Uncle Wiggily. “And before I go I must practice that new ice cream cone dance, where you stand on one ear and eat a lollypop. You’ll go, of course, Nurse Jane.”
“Well, I don’t know. I need a new dress, and——”
“Say no more about it!” cried Uncle Wiggily, with a jolly laugh. “Here is some money. Go down to the five and ten cent store and buy the finest gold and diamond silk dress you can find. I want you to look nice.”
So Nurse Jane bought the new dress, which had rows and rows of double plaited insertion with fried egg tassels down the side, and Uncle Wiggily practiced dancing for the party the Longtail mice children were to have.
At last the evening for the party came. Off started Uncle Wiggily and Nurse Jane, talking of the good times they were going to have, when, all at once, the bunny gentleman cried:
“Oh, dear! I’ve forgotten my dancing shoes! I’ll run back to the bungalow after them. You keep on, Nurse Jane, and I’ll soon catch up to you.”
Uncle Wiggily turned back, taking a shortcut to the hollow-stump bungalow, where he lived, and he was almost there when, all at once, he heard some one crying sadly:
“Oh, dear! It’s gone! Oh, what shall I do? I’d go after him if I could, but I can’t. Oh, what trouble I’m in!”
“Ha! Trouble!” cried the bunny uncle. “Some one is in trouble! That’s what I like to hear! I mean I like to hear it because I like to help people out of trouble. I must see who this is.”
He looked through the bushes and there, sitting on a stump, in the moonlight, Uncle Wiggily saw a very big man, with a turban—a white cloth, like a twisted towel—around his head. The man was sort of chocolate-colored.