"I'm sure I can," said Fido. "Here, this is the way to begin," and he did some flip-flops slow and easy-like. Then Uncle Wiggily tried them, and, though he couldn't do them very well at first, he practised until he was quite good at it. Then Fido showed him how to stand on one ear, and wiggle the other, and how to blink his eyes while standing on the end of his little tail, and then Uncle Wiggily thought of a new trick, all by himself.
"I'll stick my crutch in the ground, like a clothes pole," he said to Fido, "and then I'll hop up on it and sing a song," which he did, singing a song that went like this:
"Did you ever see a rabbit
Do a flipper-flopper-flap?
If not just kindly watch me,
As I wear my baseball cap.
"It's very strange, some folks may say,
And also rather funny,
To see a kinky poodle dog
Play with a flip-flop bunny.
"But we are on our travels,
Adventures for to seek,
We may find one, or two, or three,
'Most any day next week."
And then Uncle Wiggily hopped down, and waved both ears backward and forward, and made a low bow to a make-believe crowd of people, only, of course, there were none there.
"Fine! Fine!" cried Fido Flip-Flop. "That's better than I did when I was in the circus. Now I'll tell you what let's do."
"What?" asked Uncle Wiggily.
"Let's go around and give little shows and entertainments, for little folks to see," went on the poodle doggie. "I can turn flip-flops, and you can stand on your head on your crutch, and sing a song, and then we'll take up a collection. I'll pass my hat, and perhaps we may make our fortune—who knows?"
"Who, indeed?" said Uncle Wiggily. "We'll do it."
So off they started together to give a little show, and make some money, and, as they went on through the woods, they practised doing the tricks Uncle Wiggily had learned.
Well, in a little while, not so very long, they came to a nice place in the forest—an open place where no trees grew.