"
"Oh, that sounds like the toe nails of the burglar-fox, running around the
house!" said the rabbit. Then he listened more carefully, and suddenly he
laughed: "Ha! Ha!" Then he got up and looked out of the window. "Why, it's
only the rain drops pit-pattering on the roof," he said. "Isn't it jolly
to be in a house when it rains, and you can't get wet? After this every
night I'm going to always build a waxed-paper house," said Uncle Wiggily.
So he listened to the rain drops, and he thought how nice it was not to be
wet, and he went to sleep again. And pretty soon he woke up once more, for
he heard another noise. This time it was a sniffing, snooping, woofing
sort of a noise, and Uncle Wiggily knew that it wasn't the rain.
"I'm sure that's the burglar-fox," he said. "What shall I do? He can smash
my paper house with his teeth and claws, and then eat me. I should have
built a wooden house. But it's too late now. I know what I'll do. I'll dig
a cellar underneath my paper house, and I'll hide there, in case that fox
smashes the roof."
So Uncle Wiggily got up very softly, and right in the middle of the dirt
floor of his paper house he began to burrow down to dig a cellar. My, how
his paws made the sand and gravel fly, and soon he had dug quite a large
cellar, in which to hide.
And all this time the sniffing, snooping sound kept on, until, all of a
sudden a voice cried:
"Let me in!"
"Who are you?" asked Uncle Wiggily.
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