And off he set. Every now and then he would give a funny little clumsy hop and ask her, 'Is that how you dance?' as if he were thinking of the coming pleasure all the time.
During one of these quaint little capers he stumbled heavily.
'Drat that Rabbit!' he said. 'He's always digging his nasty holes all over the place.'
Up popped a little fluffy head.
From another hole a yard or two away, up popped a little fluffy head, and a squeaky voice said—
'Drat that Bear! He's always dropping his clumsy paws down my area.'
By a swift dart, the Bear knocked the Rabbit out of his hole and fixed him on the sand under his great paw.
'Looks as if I was going to be eaten,' said the Rabbit, trying to speak cheerfully, though his pretty black eyes were very moist. 'It's rather a bad day for being eaten—so sunny and fresh, and all the young shoots are just sprouting now, and I was just going out with Fluffie'; and he buried his little nose in the sand.
'If you did happen to want to let me go this once,' he said, in a muffled, jerky voice, 'I wouldn't be saucy any more. But it doesn't matter.'