r. Alligator, don't eat me!" he cried.

"Yes, I must eat you," said the unpleasant creature with the
double-jointed tail. And he stood up on the end of it and waggled his
head up and down and sideways and opened his mouth still wider.

Well, of course, Jacko didn't want to be eaten up, but he didn't know
how to get out of it, until all of a sudden, he thought of a plan. His
paper chain! It was black, and looked just like one made of strong iron.
Perhaps he could fool the alligator.

All at once the red monkey boy caught up the rings of paper, all pasted
together. Very quickly he threw the chain around the alligator's neck,
and then he fastened both ends of the chain to the stump with strong
paste. And he had the alligator fast in the paper chain.

Then Jacko jumped to one side and cried out:

"Now you can't get me, bad Mr. Alligator, for I have you chained fast to
the stump! You can't get away, and you can't eat me!"

Well, that alligator looked at the paper links of the paper chain around
his neck and fast to the stump. And as the paper was black, and looked
like iron, the savage creature with the double-jointed tail really
thought it was iron. So he didn't try to get away, for he knew he
couldn't break iron, but if he had known that it was only paper he could
have broken away as easily as not, just by one flip-flop of his tail, or
by biting the paper with his strong teeth. But you see he didn't know.

"Now, I have you fast!" cried Jacko.

"Oh, please let me go," begged the alligator. He it was who was scared
now.

"Never!" exclaimed Jacko. "I am going to run and meet my brother and we
will go home. You can't catch us, for you are held fast."

So Jacko ran to meet Jumpo and told him how he had caught the alligator
with a paper chain, and Jumpo was very glad. Then the monkey brothers
went safely home, and the alligator stayed in the woods chained fast to
the stump.

But in the night it rained, and the water melted the paste so that paper
chain came all apart. Then the alligator was loose, and when he saw how
he had been fooled with just paper he was as mad as anything, yes,
really he was. But he couldn't catch Jacko and Jumpo.

So that's all now, but if the pretty little girl on our street doesn't
sweep the dried leaves up in a pile and cover up the pussy cat, so it
can't go to the moving pictures, I'll tell you next about the Kinkytails
and the chirping cricket.

STORY XXVI

THE KINKYTAILS AND TH