ed to him so sweetly the idea came
into my head that perhaps I might jump right over his back and so get
out of the hole in that way; but it seemed as if he must have known
what was in my mind, for he said with another of his beastly grins:

"'Don't try to do anything like that, Bunny Rabbit, for I'm a good
deal more spry with my feet than ever grandfather was, and I'd catch
you on the fly.'

"'Perhaps you're making a mistake as to what I was thinking about,' I
said innocent-like, as if I didn't have sense enough to go home when
it rained. 'I was saying to myself that you had quite the most
beautiful tail I ever saw on one of your family.'

"Do you know, that struck him just right, and for the life of him he
couldn't help turning his head to look at it, though, between you and
me, it wasn't anything extra in the way of a tail; except for the
size, Cheeko had a better one--more bushy and with much finer hair.
Young Mr. Fox took all I said in sober earnest and began waving that
fly-brush of his to and fro so he could see it the more plainly and
then was come the time I'd been playing for!

"The very minute he turned his head I gave the jump of my life, and it
was as many as ten feet straight in the air, beating the Rabbit record
by more than five inches. I sailed right over a big alder bush, and
when I came down on my feet, young Mr. Fox had just got it into his
head that I'd played him a trick. Now you can set it down as a fact
that I didn't linger around there any very great while!

"I was off like a runaway streak of lightning the very instant I had
the ground under my paws, and, of course, young Mr. Fox started after
me; but I had a good three yards the start of him, and to a rabbit who
holds the record for running, as I do, that was a mighty long
distance. Then again I knew all the crooks and turns in our part of
the big woods, while Grandfather Fox's grandson wasn't very well
acquainted in that part of the country.

"Before I'd much more than struck my gait I knew I could give him the
slip whenever I wanted to, and it seemed as if it would do the
foolish fellow a world of good to teach him a lesson that he wouldn't
forget right away, so I set about doing it to the Queen's taste. First
I took a turn over by the pond, where the ground was so wet in spots
that he'd sink in two or three inches at every leap, while, by
skimming along the edge, I was tiring him out, which was what I didn't
want to do till he'd got