A little mocking measure.
It was glorious—worth a month of life—or at any rate it would have been if the Rabbit and Patsey had not been observed dancing a little mocking measure of their own device about twenty yards from the real dancers.
Now it is a difficult thing to look thoroughly arch and roguish while some one is imitating you, and though Mary and Miss Crocodile struggled fiercely to keep up their saucy smile, they could not help casting an occasional glance of bitterness and rage at the Rabbit and Patsey, who were mincing and curvetting with an artless coquetry twice as winning as their own.
They could barely restrain themselves until the dance had ended in a roar of applause, and then, cutting short their graceful curtsey of acknowledgment in the middle, they sprang after the little beasts, and, with hoods flying out behind, chivied them round and round until they took refuge in the skirts of Baby Jane, who had hardly noticed the mocking dance, and thought that the chivying was merely an innocent romp.
But Miss Crocodile was not to be put off, and assuming a pleasant smile, she went up to Baby Jane and suggested a playful combat with wooden broadswords between herself and Patsey. It seemed rather a good idea, and as Patsey raised no objection, it was arranged to take place at once.
Patsey appeared first in the arena, and there he sat on his sword, looking very small and innocent, like a little brown bumble-bee roosting on a twig. Miss Crocodile soon followed, with a nasty smile on her lips. (A three-inch mouth can display a great deal of nastiness; consider, then, the possibilities of a three-foot mouth!) She wasted no time, and rushing up, swung her sword to knock the bumble-bee off its twig, but as the sword reached Patsey, he fluttered a yard into the air, and, before Miss Crocodile could recover herself, his weapon had whistled twice round his head and landed—thwack!—upon her tenderest row of teeth. It was cruelly painful, and Miss Crocodile rolled on the ground and wept aloud, while Patsey skipped chuckling round her, until Baby Jane caught him and cuffed him severely. If he could not play without being rough, she said, he should not play at all. She was very fond of little Patsey, but felt that she must be a stern mother to him.
He fluttered a yard in the air.
Now the Lion had also observed Patsey and the Rabbit's little mocking dance, so when the Piccaninny, armed with a lance, was mounted on his back to engage the Rabbit, who had a sword and rode pick-a-back on Patsey, he thought it a good opportunity of serving out a little stern justice on that couple.