“Bless my whiskers!” cried the bunny uncle. “What a thing for a blackbird to do—nip off your nose! Why did he do such an impolite thing as that?”
“Why, he had to do it, because it’s that way in the Mother Goose book,” said the maid. “Don’t you remember? It goes this way:
“‘The King was in the parlor,
Counting out his money,
The Queen was in the kitchen,
Eating bread and honey.
Hanging out the clothes,
Along came a blackbird
And nipped off her nose.’