WARNED OFF.

Woodville Examiner, Volume XXI, Issue 3570, 26 June 1903, Page 4 (Supplement)

WARNED OFF.

Last summer a gentleman took a furnished house in the country for a few weeks. When all arrangements were made and the family were settling down to a t month of holiday pleasures and enjoyment, .he was horrified to find the house overrun with mice. He was very anxious, however, that the children should have a good time, and being determined to make the best of things, he called his two little sons, Archie and Ted, aged nine and seven respectively, and gave them two mousetraps—one for each—writing on one to prevent mistakes.

He (hen told them that for each mouse caught he would give a halfpenny. The children •were delighted and ran off to set the traps. Next morning Ted brought his trap with a captured mouse triumphantly to his father, received the promised reward and ran off. Archie's trap, however, was not successful.

Strange to say, it happened again the next morning, and the next. Archie was altogether broken-hearted. Still, ho was a plucky little chap, and thought he would put in a fresh piece of cheese, and set the trap in another place. As he was doing this he noticed the writing on the side of the trap. He tried Ills utmost to decipher the writing, and at last succeeded, and bursting into tears, ran to his father, holding out the trap. “Why, of course, I shall never get any halfpennies, dad. You have written on it ‘Archie’s mousetrap,’ and, of course, they won’t go in when they read that.”