“Yah!” said the Mouse.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XL, Issue 18, 29 April 1908, Page 69

“Yah!” said the Mouse.

Tom the cat sat before the fire and blinked. If you had seen him you would have said that he was feeling perfectly happy and contented. He had his saucer of milk and his pennyworth of lights regularly every day. He had a comfortable hearth where he could bask, and a lined box in the pantry where he slept at night when he had no important engagement to keep on the tiles. Yes, he looked the picture of contentment, and yet he was not happy. The trouble was this. Somewhere in the wainscot there lived a mouse, ami this mouse was a regular terror. There was no catching it, for it was up to all sorts of trick and dodges. Many an hour had Tom the cat spent sitting by the hole which formed the front, door that led to the mouse's apartments. The last time he did so he had sat so long that he thought, “Now the mouse must come out. and then — Just as he thought this thought he heard a squeak, "Yah!” He turned his head, and there was the mouse peping at him out of a second hole or back door that it had gnawed in the wainscot. "Yahl” squeaked the mouse and put its forepaw to its nose.

Quick as lightning Tom bounded forward to avenge the insult, but his

stretched-out paw only clawed the air—the mouse had vanished with a shriek of laughter. This it. was that made the cat thoughtful as he sat and blinker at the fire. “What is to be done?” he said to himself. “I’ve waited about until I felt quite cramped in my limbs, and ready to drop with fatigue, all on account of that wretched nibbier. My people have set patent traps baited with lovely cheese. I heard the cook say. ‘if the mouse only touches it with his nose it will go off “bang!” and the mouse will be caught for certain.’ But all the ingenuity of the two-legged creatures is absolutely thrown away, and the time that I have spent has been wasted. I ami my people are simply treated with contempt by this miserable gnawer of wainscots. But I’ll be even with it yet! Let me see. Let me see.”

By and by Tom winked his left eye and chuckled to himself. “The plan is at least worth trying,” he said. Then he took a short nap.

About a week later the mouse had a chat with Chirps the cricket. “What a fine voice you have!” said the mouse. “I do love to hear you sing, it is such a treat. I don’t know anyone who can reach so easily the high C as you. I would give anything to possess such a magnificent voice.” “Ah,” observed the cricket, who liked flattery as well as most folk, “singing runs in our family; I come of a race of artists ”

Presently the mouse said, “What is the matter with our dear friend Thomas?” “How should I know?” answered Chirps.

“Well, you see, you allow him to share the hearth with you, so I thought that you would be the most likely person to know.”

“Then I’ll tell you what I have observed and what I suspect. lie’s got the toothache. Quite off his feed, you know —look there!”

So saying Chirps the cricket pointed a feeler towards a distant corner. The mouse looked and saw a saucer half full of milk and a portion of lights on a skewer. “Dear, dear! that is very sad!” he exclaimed, although secretly he was filled with joy. “Yes,” continued Chirps, “and he crawls about on three legs with a paw pressed to his face, and groans ‘mi-aoli, mi-aou,’ as if he were very bad.”

In consequence of this chat with Chirps the cricket, the mouse determined to watch. Oh! what a high old time it would have if the cat were unable to work.

An evening or two later the mouse, peeping out of the front door, saw Tom the eat eome into the kitchen, not with

his usual jaunty air, but painfully dragging one leg after the other. He held a forepaw to his jaw, which was apparently frightfully swollen, and every now and then he uttered a plaintive ‘mi aou, miaou,’ just as Chirps the cricket had reported. Finally the eat managed to reach the hearth, where he sank down exhausted and lay quite still.

“I wonder if our dear friend is dead ?” murmured the mouse. The cat lay so still that the mouse came boldly into the room and nibbled the lights. Then it looked curiously at the cat, waited a few minutes, and approached him on tip-toe. Tom did not stir; no, there was no sign of life. The mouse said aloud, “Poor fellow! I think he's dead; but I’ve read that when an animal is really dead it lifts up one of its hind legs and says “Wahoo.”

“Well, if poor old Thomas is really and truly dead,” said the mouse, “he’ll be cold. I wonder if he is?” The mouse camo closer and closer and put out a paw; in the paw was a straw with which it deftly tickled the cat's nose. The cat, thinking the mouse was feeling him with its paw to see if he were cold, pounced on the straw, crying, “Ah! so I’ve caught you at last!” Then he knew that he had been taken in, and looking in the direction of a distant squeak, saw the mouse with its paw on its nose vanish through its front door. “Sold again!” said the eat ruefully. whilst Chirps the cricket sang, “No, no, Thomas, not this trip; there's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip.”