should say, _nights_!" Mr. Mouse
exclaimed with a sigh. "It makes me sad just to think of that fine, old,
stale, moldy cheese."

"I suppose Mrs. Green gives it all to that horrid Miss Snooper now,"
said Mrs. Mouse, as she climbed to a shelf and looked at the labels on
several jars of jam and jelly that stood there in a row.

Moses Mouse watched her hopefully. Being quite plump, he was a bit
lazy. And he did not care to scramble up to a shelf for nothing.

"There isn't one without a cover, is there?" he inquired.

"No!" his wife replied.

"There isn't one with a little sweetness oozing down the side of it, is
there?" he asked her.

"No!" said Mrs. Mouse. "Not one! I suppose Miss Snooper has licked them
all clean."

"That disagreeable Miss Snooper has spoiled everything for us," Moses
Mouse declared. And for a fat gentleman he looked oddly unhappy.

"I don't know what we'll do for our supper," he whined. He always whined
when he was hungry.

"There's that chunk of putty that Farmer Green left in the woodshed,"
his wife reminded him.

"Ugh!" Moses Mouse made a wry face. "We've dined upon that for the last
three nights. And I never did like putty, anyhow. I wish that snooping
Miss Snooper had to eat it." His mournful eyes roved about the cellar
until they rested on something in a dark corner. "What's in that box
over there?" he asked Mrs. Mouse.

"I don't know," she answered.

"Well--go and see, then!" he snapped. "I'm so faint I can scarcely
stand."

Mrs. Mouse always humored Moses when he was hungry. She knew that he was
never fretful after he had eaten a good meal. So her feet twinkled
across the cellar floor and she disappeared inside the box.

Not hearing anything from her, Moses Mouse soon grew more impatient than
ever.

"Well!" he sang out. "What luck!"

"Potatoes!" came his wife's muffled answer, out of a full mouth. "I
declare, I forgot to call you."

XVII

THE EAVESDROPPER

FOR ANYBODY that was so faint, Moses Mouse ran to the box of potatoes
very spryly. His wife was already inside it, eating.

"I'll have my supper first," he announced, "while you stay outside on
the cellar bottom and watch for Miss Snooper."

"I'm just as hungry as you are," his wife objected. "I don't want to
wait. You know you'll be a long time at your supper." What she really
meant was that Moses Mouse would be sure to overeat.

"Very well!" he said. "But don't blame me if Miss Snooper sneaks up on
us."