“Get up! How dare you sit on my history?” Ruggedo stamped his foot and started threateningly toward Wag.
“All right,” said the rabbit, “it’s too hard, anyway.”
“Of course it’s hard,” stormed Ruggedo. “I’ve had a hard life; hard as those rocks. Everybody’s been against me from the very start, and all because I’m so little,” he finished bitterly.
“No, because you are so wicked,” said the rabbit calmly. “Now, don’t throw your pipe at me, for you know it’s the truth.”
Ruggedo glared at the rabbit for a minute, then rushed over to the wooden doll, and began shaking her furiously. He always vented his rage on the wooden doll.
“Stop that,” screamed Wag, “or I’ll leave upon the spot. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. You old scrabble-scratch.”
“She’s not alive,” snapped Ruggedo sulkily.
“How do you know?” retorted the rabbit. “Anyway, she’s a jolly creature. I’m not going to have her banged around. Here you’ve taken her away from her little mother, and she hasn’t even anyone to rock her to sleep.”
“I’ll rock her to sleep,” screamed Ruggedo, maliciously. And flinging the doll on the floor he began hurling small rocks at the helpless little figure.
Scrambling to his feet, Wag rescued the wooden doll again, and Ruggedo, who really was afraid the rabbit would leave him, subsided into his rocking chair. Then reaching up to a small shelf over his head, he pulled down an accordion. At the first doleful wheeze Wag gave a great hop, dropped Peg and disappeared into his room in the farthest corner of the cave.