ing out from the kitchen with leaves of Mr. Masini's best lettuce or spinach to tempt the snail's appetite. Perez, whose bedroom in the garage was just beside the rabbit hutch, sat there in the evenings playing soft encouraging music on his ukulele. At last the invalid seemed to shake off his weakness. His eyes no longer peered timidly from under his shell, but came out and waved boldly and gratefully. He even disputed with Bunny her habit of eating the old sheet of lettuce when she made his bed fresh every morning. He began eating part of it himself. He was getting better.
The illness of Escargot had brought the neighbourhood together in a way nothing had done before. Every morning they would all gather round the rabbit hutch to inquire about the snail, and their interest in him seemed to make them forget any private feuds of their own. You would have been surprised to see them. Pigeons and chickens from Mr. Hopkins's, robins and squirrels from the woods near by, Fourchette and her kittens, Donny and Fritz, even Cap, the big red setter who hardly ever goes off Mr. Hopkins's grounds, all would sit quietly together beside the wire netting of the rabbit run while
