POUNCE TO THE RESCUE

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 56, 9 March 1929, Page 15

POUNCE TO THE RESCUE

You-, cau imagine, perhaps, the "joy and shyness and interest that were ail bubbling up in the heart of "Troddlcs' as she entered on her. duties for the. holidays at Lostford's, the great booksellers. ...

Troddles (she?s really .called JPiametta, but it's too long) bad: a .big. sister who sold books, and as, somebody was going away for holidays Troddlest. hacl. been asked to come to. the shop.. She was quite good about .bookß, 1 and .many, a time in, the shop had looked longingly at;the big, broad shelf where the piles of brown paper lay for doing up par-, cols, the huge roll of mauve twine, and; the many pairs, of scissors. .•.-■■ -

So Troddlcs, with bobbed -hair andj grey,, jumper suit, was .going .to sqlLbooks for a month, and; -.what a lot there would be to. tell the girls of the si^th forni when she went; back to. school again! She was to sell at the Natural History counter. -But the very first morning something went'wrong -in" the-shop.. Tiro man agef., Mr.Gos's, was' hurrying, along with- a frowij-oil -his" face, and Miss* Bell,, the head-of thedc-'----partment, 1 seemed miserable., vi:: "The mice have'been afit again and" have eaten right into the rare edition of Parkinson's Herbal," she said, and showed'Troddlcs. an "ancient book, woefully nibbled at the .edges. "Get a cat!" Troddlcs said;

"Wo liavc had one. Only., thcro. ivas nobody to look, after it and .we sent it away. It was never let out, it had no little bed to sleep in, it was not fed. We haven't time. But tho mice are really abominable, it's- serious."

Troddles thought a- little,-, and consulted her sister. She served maijy customers. (Why did ...they .-never. buy : books on cats and f|sh;'aj\vays".oii birds and dogs?) At the end of the day she