it?"

"It is I. The little Dormouse," was the answer, and, looking down, Uncle Wiggily saw the tiny creature who had been at the queer tea party when the Mad March Hare smashed the Hatter's 5 o'clock watch.

The tail of the poor little Dormouse was caught fast in between two stones and she could not move, but Uncle Wiggily quickly loosened it for her and she was very thankful to get out.

"I was afraid I'd be late," said the Dormouse. "I have to hurry on to help the Queen of Hearts put sugared cheese on the blackberry tarts for the King's birthday. I'll see you again, Uncle Wiggily."

"I hope so," spoke the bunny uncle, as he hurried away to get his new hat, all the while wondering whether or not he would see Alice from Wonderland.

Uncle Wiggily reached the green meadow trees, but no one else was there. He looked up and down, and all around, but there was not even an old hat in sight, to say nothing of a new one.

"I wonder if this letter is an April fool joke?" thought the bunny uncle, taking from his pocket the envelope Dickie had given him. "No, if it's the month of June it can't be April Fool's Day, any more than it can be time for valentines," said the bunny. "But I wonder where my hat is?"

Hardly had Uncle Wiggily said this, out loud, than, all of a sudden, a voice cried:

"Here's your hat!"

With that something seemed to drop down from the clouds, or maybe it was from one of the trees. But whatever it was it completely covered Uncle Wiggily out of sight. It was just as if you took a large bowl and turned it upside down over a grasshopper, only, of course, Uncle Wiggily was not a grasshopper, though he did jump around a lot.

And, at first, in the sudden darkness, the rabbit gentleman thought it was a bowl that, perhaps, the circus elephant's little boy had turned over on him just for fun.

Then, making his pink nose twinkle very fast, so that it shone in the dark like a firefly lantern, Uncle Wiggily was able to see that he was inside a large, tall, silk hat. When it had dropped over him it had shut out all the sunlight, making it quite dark inside where the bunny was.

"Yes, this is a hat!" said Uncle Wiggily to himself. "But what a funny way to give it to me! And it's so large! Instead of my new hat going outside my head, my head is inside the hat. This will never do! I must get out and see what the trouble is. This must be the elephant's hat, it's so large."

But when Uncle Wiggily tried to lift up one edge of the hat, to crawl out, he found he could not. Some one seemed to be sitting on top of the hat, which was shaped like the silk stovepipe one Uncle Wiggily always wore. And a voice cried:

"Hold it tight and he can't get out!"

"Oh, I'm holding it tight!" was the answer.

Then Uncle Wiggily knew what had happened. Some one had played a sad trick on him. And it was two bad old skillery-scalery alligators. They had borrowed the Wonderland Hatter's hat—which was very large. Nor had they told the Hatter what they wanted of it, for if they had he never would have let them borrow it to make trouble for Uncle Wiggily.

The alligators had climbed up the tree with the big hat, and, after sending Uncle Wiggily the note, they had waited until he came to the field. Then from the branches above they dropped the hat down over him and sat on it.

"And I can't get out!" cried Uncle Wiggily. "That's the worst of it! I can't get out, and those bad alligators will reach under and grab me and—"

"No they won't!" cried a little squeaky voice down low on the ground, just outside the hat.

"Why not?" asked Uncle Wiggily, hopeful like.

"Because I am the Dormouse whom you helped," was the answer. "Now, listen! With my sharp teeth I am going to cut a door in the side of the hat where the alligators, sitting up on top, can't see it. Then you can get out."

So the Dormouse, being made for just such work, as you can tell by its name, gnawed a door in the side of the Hatter's hat, and out crawled the bunny rabbit gentleman before the alligators could grab him. And the bunny and the Dormouse got safely away, Mr. Longears being very thankful, indeed, for having been helped by the little creature.

So the alligators had nothing for dinner but stewed pears, and if our dog doesn't leave his tail on the wrong side of the fence, so the cat can use it for a dusting brush, I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the Gryphon.

CHAPTER V
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE GRYPHON

Uncle Wiggily Longears, the nice rabbit gentleman, had just finished shaving his whiskers in his hollow stump bungalow one morning when Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, his muskrat lady housekeeper, came to his door, knocked gently by flapping her tail against it, and said:

"If you please, Mr. Longears, there's a young lady to see you."

"Of course I'm pleased," answered Uncle Wiggily. "I always like to see young ladies, especially if they have light, fluffy hair. Has this one that kind?"

"Very much so," answered Nurse Jane. "Here she is now," and with that in came a nice young lady, or, rather, a tall girl, with flaxen hair.

"I'm afraid you don't remember me," she said, as Uncle Wiggily wiped the soap lather off the end of his pink, twinkling nose, where it had splashed by mistake, making it look like part of a frosted chocolate cake.

"Oh, yes, I do remember you!" cried the bunny gentleman, in his most jolly voice. "You're Alice from Wonderland, and you were very kind to help me grow smaller that time the big mosquito got me into his cave and I swelled up from eating cake."

"Oh, I'm so glad you remember me!" laughed Alice, for it was indeed she. "I've come to ask you to do me a bit of a favor. I have to go see the Gryphon, and I thought maybe you'd come with me, for I'm afraid he'll be real cross to me."

"You have to go see the Gryphon?" exclaimed Uncle Wiggily. "Who in the world is he?"

"Oh, he's a funny animal who lives in the same story book with me," explained Alice. "He's something between a dragon, a lion, an elephant, a flying fish and an alligator."

"Whew!" whistled Uncle Wiggily. "He must be a curious creature!"

"He is," Alice said. "And sometimes he's very cross, especially if the wind blows his veil up."

"If the wind blows his veil up?" asked Uncle Wiggily. "In the first place, why does he wear a veil, and in the second place, why should he be angry if the wind blows it?"

"There isn't any first or second place about it," spoke Alice, "for you never can tell in which place the Gryphon will be found. But he wears a veil because he is so ugly that every one runs away when one sees him, and he doesn't like that. And, of course, he doesn't like the wind to blow up his veil so folks can see how he really looks."

"Ah, ha! I understand," remarked the bunny. "But if he is so cross why do you want to go to see him?"

"I don't want to," replied Alice, "but I have to, because it's that way in the book. You see, to make everything come out right, the Gryphon takes me to the Mock Turtle, who tells me a funny story, and so now I've come to see if you'll take me to the Gryphon?"

"I will," promised Uncle Wiggily, washing the soap lather out of his ears. "But where shall we find him?"

"Oh, that's the question!" laughed Alice, just as though Uncle Wiggily had asked a riddle. "You have three guesses," she