CHAPTER XIV.
MARDI HAS A NIGHT OFF.
PROFESSOR THUNDER was hurt in his professional pride by the signal failure of his Museum of Marvels in Rabbit township.

In the first place, the great impresario had been guilty of a grievous blunder in selecting Rabbit for a two-night's pitch, but things had been going so remarkably well of late, due mainly to the eccentric adventures of the Missing Link, that the boss was getting proud, and was beginning to feel that his astounding galaxy of unparalleled attractions would draw well in the dead centre of the Old Man Plain.

Rabbit township was making his error plain to him.
Usually when the caravan bounded into a township, with the little bells on the horses jingling gaily, and Madame Marve, dressed in a somewhat brief and too youthful costume, enthroned on the box seat, playing a rattling tune on the cornet, the people turned out in crowds to welcome it, and the children swarmed, eager for a peep at the hidden mysteries.
It was different at Rabbit township.
The caravan dashed into Rabbit with the customary velocity and the regulation rattle, but Rabbit did not trouble itself.
"Blarst my eyes!" growled the Professor, when the camp was made; "even the dogs didn't bark! What sort of a boneyard is this we've struck ?" As a matter of fact, Rabbit was a moribund township.

The rabbits had eaten up the surrounding country, and now they were beginning to eat up the township.

So voracious was bunny that when a man went missing it was gloomily concluded that the rabbits had eaten him, and the township took no action, subsiding in despair.