I
love to watch him--the sly little fellow--nibbling his favorite cheese,
his keen black eye looking straight at me, all the time, as if to read
by my countenance what sort of thoughts I had about his mouseship. How
much at home he always contrives to make himself in a family! How very
much at his ease he is, as he regales himself on the best things which
the house affords!
A day or two ago, a friend of mine was telling me an amusing story about
some mice with which he had the pleasure of a slight acquaintance. He
lived in the same house with a gentleman who kept a sort of bachelor's
hall, and who was a great lover of pets. This gentleman took him into
his room one day to see a mouse which he was educating to be a companion
of his lonely hours. The bachelor remarked that he had been a pensioner
for some time, that he fed him bountifully every day, and that he had
become very tame indeed. "But," said the mouse's patron, "he is an
ungrateful fellow. He is not content with eating what I give him; he
destroys every thing he can lay hold of." A short time after this, my
friend was called in again, when he was told by the bachelor, that, the
mouse having become absolutely intolerable by his petty larcenies and
grand larcenies, he set a trap for him and caught him. But still the
larcenies continued. He set his trap again, and caught another rogue,
and another, and another, till at last he found he had been making a pet
of thirteen mice, instead of one, as he at first supposed.
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