"I'm the bad alligator," was the answer, "and if you don't let me in, I'll smash down your paper house with one swoop of my scalery-ailery tail."
"You can't come in!" cried the rabbit, and then that bad alligator gave one swoop of his tail, and smashed Uncle Wiggily's nice paper house all to pieces!
But do you s'pose the rabbit was there? No, indeed. He just grabbed up his crutch and valise, and ran down into his cellar as far and as fast as he could run, just as the roof fell in. And the cellar wasn't big enough for the alligator to get in, and so he had to stay outside, and he couldn't get Uncle Wiggily.
And then it rained, and thundered and lightninged, and the alligator got scared, and ran off, but the rabbit gentleman was safe down in his cellar, and he didn't get a bit wet, and went to sleep there for the rest of the night. Now, please go to bed, and in case my toothbrush, doesn't go out roller skating, and fall down and get bald-headed, I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the paper boat.
STORY XXI
UNCLE WIGGILY IN A PAPER BOAT
When the morning dawned, after he had slept all night in the cellar under his paper house, that the alligator, with his swooping scalery-ailery tail, had knocked down, Uncle Wiggily awakened, brushed the dirt from his ears, and crawled out.
"My!" he exclaimed as he saw the paper house all flat on the ground, like a pancake, "Nannie Goat would certainly be sorry to see this. But I suppose it can't be helped. Anyhow, it's a good thing that I am not squashed as flat as that house is. Now I'll see about my breakfast, and then I'll travel on again."
So the old gentleman rabbit got his breakfast, eating almost the last piece of the cherry pie, which he had left from the time when he made some for the hedgehog, and then, taking his crutch, striped red, white and blue, like a barber pole, off he started.