"I guess I'll sharpen my teeth so I can eat him better," and with that the
savage and unpleasant creature began to gnaw on a stone, to sharpen his
teeth. Then he stood up on the end of his tail once more, under the tree,
and opened his mouth as wide as he could.

"Come on now!" he called to Uncle Wiggily. "Jump down and have it over
with."

"Oh, but I don't want to," objected the rabbit.

"You'll have to, whether you want to or not," went on the alligator. "If
you don't come down, I'll take my scaly, naily tail, and I'll saw down the
tree, and then you'll fall."

"Oh, dear!" exclaimed Uncle Wiggily. "What shall I do?"

Then he happened to think of the bottle of toothache medicine that he held
in his hand, and, taking out the cork, he dropped the bottle, medicine and
all, right into the open mouth of the alligator, who was again up on his
tail.

And the alligator thought it was Uncle Wiggily falling into his jaws, and
he shut them quickly like a steel trap and chewed on that bottle of hot
toothache drops before he knew what it was.

Well, you can just imagine what happened. The medicine was as hot as
pepper and mustard and vinegar and cloves and horse radish all made into
one! My! how it did burn that alligator's mouth.

"Oh my! I'm shot! I'm poisoned! I'm bitten by a mosquito! I'm stabbed! I'm