Brown turned up his eyes in disgust at the
impertinence of Nutkin.
But he ate up the honey!
The squirrels filled their little sacks with
nuts.
But Nutkin sat upon a big flat rock, and played ninepins with a crab apple and green
fir-cones.


On the sixth day, which was Saturday, the
squirrels came again for the last time; they brought a new-laid egg in a
little rush basket as a last parting present for Old Brown.
But Nutkin ran in front laughing, and shouting —
“Humpty Dumpty lies in the beck,
With a white counterpane round his neck,
Forty doctors and forty wrights,
Cannot put Humpty Dumpty to rights!”
Now old Mr. Brown took an interest in eggs; he opened one eye and shut it again. But
still he did not speak.


Nutkin became more and more impertinent —
“Old Mr. B! Old Mr. B!
Hickamore, Hackamore,
on the King’s kitchen door;All the King’s horses,
and all the King’s men,Couldn’t drive Hickamore, Hackamore,
Off the King’s kitchen door!”
Nutkin danced up and down like a sunbeam; but still
Old Brown said nothing at all.
Nutkin began again —
“Arthur O’Bower has broken his band,
He comes roaring up the land!
The King of Scots with all his power,
Cannot turn Arthur of the Bower!”
Nutkin made a whirring noise to sound like the wind, and he took a running jump right onto the head of Old Brown!…
Then all at once there was a flutterment and a scufflement and a loud “Squeak!”
The other squirrels scuttered away into the bushes.


When they came back very cautiously, peeping round
the tree — there was Old Brown sitting on his door-step, quite still, with his eyes closed, as if nothing
had happened.
*
But Nutkin was in his waistcoat pocket!
This looks like the end of the story; but it
isn’t.

Old Brown
carried Nutkin into his house, and held him up by the tail, intending to skin him; but Nutkin pulled so very
hard that his tail broke in two, and he dashed up the staircase, and escaped out of the attic window.


And to this day, if you meet Nutkin up a tree and
ask him a riddle, he will throw sticks at you, and stamp his feet and scold, and shout —
“Cuck-cuck-cuck-cur-r-r-cuck-k-k!”
The End
FREDERICK WARNE
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand,
London WC2R 0RL, England
Website: www.peterrabbit.com
First published by Frederick Warne 1903
This electronic edition first published 2010
New reproductions of Beatrix Potter’s illustrations
copyright ©Frederick Warne & Co., 2002
Original copyright in text and illustrations
©Frederick Warne & Co., 1903
Frederick Warne & Co. is the owner of all rights,
copyrights and trademarks in the Beatrix Potter
character names and illustrations.
All rights reserved
ISBN: 978-0-72-326561-0

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