f for you. And then, of course, you'll have no
more trouble with your coat. You can throw it off any time you please."

"Good!" Mr. Crow exclaimed. "The buttons shall be yours. I don't want
them, for I shall never wear this coat again."

So Fatty Coon set to work to take off the buttons. He removed them in a
very odd way, too. Instead of tearing them off he began eating them!

"Goodness!" Mr. Crow cried. "Aren't you afraid you'll be ill?"

But Fatty Coon never answered. He kept on nibbling the buttons and
crunching them in his mouth. And he never stopped until he had swallowed
the very last one.

Then he smacked his lips (for he knew no better).

"Those were the finest gingersnaps I ever tasted," he remarked. "It's a
pity there weren't a baker's dozen of them, instead of only ten."

Old Mr. Crow nearly fell over, he was so surprised. He had never dreamed
that those big brown buttons, which Mr. Frog had sewed upon his coat,
were nothing but gingersnaps.

"If I'd known that I would have eaten them myself!" he exclaimed. "But I
don't care. Now that I can get out of this heavy coat, I'm satisfied."

But to Mr. Crow's dismay, the coat clung round him as tightly as ever. He
couldn't throw it open at all. And he turned the least bit pale.

"This is strange!" he murmured. "What can be the matter, I wonder!"

Fatty Coon looked at the coat again. And then he laughed.

"The trouble--" he said--"the trouble is, there are no buttonholes! Your
coat doesn't open in front. And it doesn't open anywhere else, either.
It's _sewed on you_, Mr. Crow."

Poor Mr. Crow began to feel faint. He leaned against a tree and did not
speak for some time. But he was thinking deeply. And all at once he
understood what had happened.

"It's all the fault of that silly tailor, Mr. Frog!" he groaned. "He made
me stand still a long time. And that was when he sewed my coat up the
back.... What can I do?" he asked helplessly.

"If I were you I'd go straight to Mr. Frog's shop and make him take
the stitches out," Fatty Coon said. "And if he has any more of those
gingersnaps, I wish you'd let me know."

XVIII

AN UNLUCKY NUMBER

As soon as old Mr. Crow pushed open the door of Mr. Frog's tailor's shop,
Mr. Frog jumped up quickly. He had been sitting cross-legged upon a
table, sewing. And when he leaped off the table he sprang so high that
his head struck the ceiling.

"What's that noise?" Mr. Crow asked him nervously, when Mr. Frog h