The rabbit gentleman started off through the snow-storm toward the underground house, but he had not gone very far before, just as he was coming out from behind a big stump, he heard voices talking.
“Now, I’ll tell you how we can get those rabbits,” Uncle Wiggily heard one voice say. “I’ll crawl down in the burrow, and as soon as they see me they’ll be scared and run out—Uncle Wiggily, Mrs. Littletail, the two children, Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy and all. Then you can grab them, Mr. Bigtail! I am glad I happened to meet you!”
“Ah, ha!” thought Uncle Wiggily. “Mr. Bigtail! I ought to know that name. It’s the fox, and he and some one else seem to be after us rabbits. But I thought the fox promised to be good and let me alone. He must have changed his mind.”
Uncle Wiggily peeked cautiously around the stump, taking care to make no noise, and there he saw a fox and another animal talking. And the rabbit gentleman saw that it was not the fox who had promised to be good, but another one, of the same name, who was bad.
“Yes, I’ll go down the hole and drive out the rabbits and you can grab them,” said the queer animal.
“That’s good,” growled the fox, “but to whom have I the honor of speaking?” That was his way of asking the name of the other animal, you see.
“Oh, I’m called Mr. Pop-Goes,” said the other.
“Mr. Pop-Goes! What a queer name,” said the fox, and all the while Uncle Wiggily was listening with his big ears, and wondering what it all meant.
“Oh, Pop-Goes isn’t all my name,” said the queer animal. “Don’t you know the story in the book? The monkey chased the cobbler’s wife all around the steeple. That’s the way the money goes, Pop! goes the weasel. I’m Mr. Pop-Goes, the weasel, you see. I’m ‘specially good at chasing rabbits.”
“Oh, I see!” barked Mr. Bigtail, the fox. “Well, I’ll be glad if you can help me get those rabbits. I’ve been over to that Uncle Wiggily’s hollow-stump bungalow, but he isn’t around.”