"Find my white rabbits and I will give you whatever you ask of me, even though it should be the crown from my head," he said to everybody who came to see him; and, of course, everybody started out at once to look for the rabbits.
The princes and princesses, the dukes and the duchesses, the counts and the countesses, and all the other fine ladies and gentlemen of the king's court went in carriages to the city to look for the rabbits, and presently they came back in great glee. They had not found the rabbits, but they had bought some made of candy at a confectioner's shop, and they were very much pleased with themselves.
"These are so cunning and sweet—much sweeter than real rabbits," they said, but the little king did not think so.
"They are fit for nothing but to be eaten," he said, and he had them carried away to the pantry.
The little king's soldiers felt very certain that the king in the next country had taken away the rabbits, so they marched over the hill to bring them back, beating their drums with a , bum, bum. Their uniforms were as red as a cock's comb, and they were as brave as lions, but they had to come home without the white rabbits. The king of the next country had never so much as seen the tips of their ears.
"King indeed," said the hunters. "The foxes have carried the rabbits away to their , and we will go and bring them back or know the reason why," and they hastened to the woods with their guns. Bang, bang—they, too, made a great noise, but it did no good. The king's rabbits were nowhere to be found.
The servants all went to the park. "If the rabbits are anywhere they are here," they said, and they told the park policeman about them.
"White rabbits with pink eyes and pink ears are not allowed in the park," he said indignantly, so the servants had to go home without the rabbits, as all the rest had done.
The king's gardener went to his garden in a hurry. "I'll not have a leaf left," he said to himself. But when he got to the garden every leaf was in place. The pink roses were just opening their buds in the sunshine, and the white pinks were nodding in the breezes, but not a sign of the white rabbits with pink eyes and pink ears did the gardener see.
The gardener's little daughter Peggy went to the rabbit hutch first of all. She knew that the rabbits were not there, of course, but she had to begin her search somewhere. Nobody, not even the little king himself, loved the white rabbits more than Peggy did. She knew their names, and how old they were, and what they liked best to eat. Every morning as soon as she had eaten her own breakfast she came up from the little cottage where she lived with her mother and father, to bring them
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