The Tale of Old Mr. Crow

XVIII

AN UN­LUCKY NUM­BER

As soon as old Mr. Crow pushed open the door of Mr. Frog's tai­lor's shop, Mr. Frog jumped up quick­ly. He had been sit­ting cross-​legged up­on a ta­ble, sewing. And when he leaped off the ta­ble he sprang so high that his head struck the ceil­ing.

“What's that noise?” Mr. Crow asked him ner­vous­ly, when Mr. Frog had land­ed up­on his feet. “It sound­ed like thun­der; but there's not a cloud in the sky.”

“It was my head,” Mr. Frog ex­plained. “It hit the ceil­ing, you know.”

“Oh!” said Mr. Crow. “It made a very hol­low sound. But I am not sur­prised. I have al­ready learned that your head is quite emp­ty.”

“It's cer­tain­ly not sol­id,” Mr. Frog agreed pleas­ant­ly. No mat­ter what hap­pened, he nev­er lost his tem­per.

But Mr. Crow was dif­fer­ent. _He_ was an­gry.

“You've got me in­to a pret­ty fix!” said he. “And now you must get me out of it.”

“I sup­pose you want more but­tons,” Mr. Prog ob­served. “I no­ticed as you came in that you had lost ev­ery one.”

“No!” Mr. Crow told him. “What I want is to get out of this coat. I've de­cid­ed to spend the win­ter in the South, af­ter all. And here you've been and gone and sewed the coat on me, and left me no way at all to slip out of it.”

“I beg your par­don,” the tai­lor replied po­lite­ly. “Par­don _me_--but I think you are mis­tak­en. I left four open­ings through which any­one could crawl out.”

Old Mr. Crow looked puz­zled.

“I should like to know where they are,” he said.

“The neck, the skirts, and the two sleeves!” Mr. Frog told him.

At that Mr. Crow looked at him severe­ly.

“How could you ex­pect me to slip through any of those places?” he asked.

“Why--” said the tai­lor--“I thought it would be easy for you. I've al­ways heard you were a very slip­pery cus­tomer.”

When he said that, Mr. Crow made some queer nois­es in his throat, much as if he were chok­ing.

“Are you ill?” the tai­lor cried.

“Just a frog in my throat!” Mr. Crow an­swered.

As he said that. Mr. Frog leaped to­ward the door. He was a jumpy sort of per­son. When any­thing star­tled him you could nev­er tell in what di­rec­tion he might spring. And he was now about to rush out of his shop when Mr. Crow caught him and dragged him back.

“You can't go,” he shout­ed, “un­til you've tak­en the stitch­es out of the back of my coat.”

“Oh, cer­tain­ly!” Mr. Frog qua­vered. And he set to work at once to open the back seam of Mr. Crow's coat.

He was a spry work­er--was Mr. Frog. In less time than it takes to tell it he had ripped the back of the coat from col­lar to hem.

And old Mr. Crow was no less spry in pulling the coat off and fling­ing it in­to a cor­ner.

“There!” Mr. Crow cried. “There's your coat with the thir­teen spots on it! I cer­tain­ly don't want it, for it has caused me no end of trou­ble.” Then he turned and hur­ried out of the shop, with­out stop­ping even to thank Mr. Frog for what he had done.

Be­fore Mr. Crow was out of hear­ing, the tai­lor thrust his head through the door­way and called to the de­part­ing Mr. Crow.

“I told you--” said Mr. Frog--“I told you thir­teen was an un­lucky num­ber.”