Papa No-tail, the frog gentleman, was working away in the wallpaper
factory one day, when something quite strange happened to him, and if
you all sit right nice and quiet, as my dear old grandmother used to
say, I’ll tell you all about it, from the beginning to the end, and I’ll
even tell you the middle part, which some people leave out, when they
tell stories.

Papa No-Tail would dip his four feet, which were something like hands,
in the different colored inks at the factory. There was red ink, and
blue ink, and white ink, and black ink, and sky-purple-green ink, and
also that newest shade, skilligimink color, which Sammie Littletail once
dyed his Easter eggs. After he had his feet nicely covered with the ink,
Papa No-Tail would hop all over pieces of white paper to make funny
patterns on them. Then they would be ready to paper a room, and make it
look pretty.

“I think that is very well done,” said the old gentleman frog to himself
as he looked at one roll of paper on which he had made a picture of a
mouse chasing a big lion. “Now I think I will make a pattern of a doggie
standing on his left ear.” And he did so, and very fine it was, too.

“Now, while I’m waiting for the ink to dry,” said Mr. No-Tail, “I’ll lie
down and take a nap.” So he went fast, fast asleep on a long piece of
the wall paper that was stretched out on the floor, and this was the
beginning of his trouble.

For, all at once, a puff of wind—not a cream puff, you understand, but a
wind puff—came in the window, and rolled up the wallpaper in a tight
little roll, and the worst of it was that Papa No-Tail was asleep
inside. Yes, fast, fast asleep, and he never knew that he was wrapped