Page:Poor Cecco - 1925.djvu/157

Rh Jensina, who had no intention of giving up the penny, took a step back, startled by the Money-Pig’s squealing, while the Easter Chicken suddenly piped up: “I’ll find you a penny if you’ll tell that you saw Murrum stealing Tubby!”

“I won’t!” the Money-Pig bellowed. “I won’t tell you! Give me that penny at once!”

It all happened in a moment! Jensina made a movement to protect Poor Cecco’s money, snatching it from the sofa; the Money-Pig gave a shriek, and in his rage he leaned so far forward that his hoof slipped, he lost his balance, and—crash!—he fell off the Noah’s Ark roof and was broken to pieces!

There he lay in fragments on the toy-cupboard floor, and there, among the pennies, and the scraps of green china that a moment ago had been his ears and his snout and his fat bulging sides, lay dozens and dozens of folded notes of all shapes and sizes—a whole pile of them—each one addressed: “To Dear Bulka. In the Toy-Cupboard.”—all Tubby’s love letters that she had written so carefully and posted inside him! The wonder was that he had held them all up to now without bursting!

There they were, plain for all the world to see, with “Dear Bulka” written in a big round hand on each one of them. “Tubby’s been writing to me! Tubby’s written me a letter!” Bulka cried. He began to gather the letters up in armfuls, dropping half of them in his haste.