Читать книгу Nibble Rabbit Makes More Friends онлайн

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“Poor little bunny! I didn’t know that was going to hurt you,” whispered the little boy. And he put a very sorry finger on the place where the picture wire had been.

But Nibble still kicked and struggled so hard that Tommy would have lost him if he hadn’t kept a tight hold of the bunny’s long ears. And Tommy did keep a tight hold, for the more he saw of Nibble the more he wanted him.

In ten minutes Nibble was locked in a cage. It really was a very nice one—for a rabbit who had been born there. But for Nibble it was as cramped as Ouphe the Rat’s narrow black tunnels under the haystack. It was only half a leap long and three creeps across. There was one dark corner in it where he could hide behind some hay when the humans came to look at him—and they did come, all sizes and colours and noises, just as Gimlet the Woodpecker had said. When they went away again he snubbed his nose trying to take the kinks out of his legs where he had been sitting on them.

And more than the humans came to call on him. For the minute they turned their backs a great big beast, much bigger than Silvertip, put his forepaws up on the front of the cage and sniffed at him. He was nearly the same colour as Silvertip, only his back was more grizzled and he had a white collar as well as a white shirtfront like most wild things wear. But this beast didn’t have a hungry look; he was only curious—like Nibble is himself when he isn’t scared. All the same, Nibble was afraid of him.