ry kind. She would have liked to pick him up to make sure he had got
no knocks, but she knew too well that would not do. So all she could do
was to say again--

"Mine child--ach, Herr Baby!"

Baby did not take any notice.

"Zeally," he said coolly, "ganfather must do somesing to zem locks. Zem
is all most dedful 'tiff."

Lisa smiled to herself. She was used to Baby's ways.

"Herr Baby shall grow tall some day," she said. "Zen him can open
doors."

Lisa's talking was nearly as funny as Baby's, and, indeed, I rather
think that hers had made his all the funnier. But, any way, they
understood each other. He was thinking over what she had said, when a
scream from the nursery made them both turn round in a hurry.

"O Lisa, O Baby, come in quick, do. Peepy-Snoozle has got out of the
cage, and he'll be out at the door in another moment. Quick, quick, come
in and shut the door."

Lisa and Baby did not wait to be twice told. Inside the nursery there
was a great flurry. Celia, Fritz, and Denny were all there crawling over
the floor and screaming at each other.

"_I_ have him! there--oh, now that's too bad. Fritz, you frightened him
away again," called out Celia.

"_Me_ frighten him away! Why he knows me ever so much better than you
girls," said Fritz.

"He just doesn't then," said Denny with triumph, "for here he is safe in
my apron."

But she had hardly said the words when she gave a little scream. "He's
off again, oh quick, Baby, quick, catch him."

How Baby did it, I can't tell. His hands seemed too small to catch
anything, even a dormouse. But catch the truant he did, and very proud
Baby looked when he held up his two little fists, which he had made into
a "mouse-trap" _really_, for the occasion, with Peepy-Snoozle's "coxy"
little head and bright beady eyes poking out at the top.

"Oh look, look, Baby's made Peepy-Snoozle into 'the parson in the pulpit
that couldn't say his prayers,'" cried Denny, dancing about.

"All the same, he'd better go back into his cage," said Fritz, who had a
right to be heard, as he was the master and owner of the dormice. "Come
along, Baby, poke him in."

Baby was busy kissing and petting Peepy-Snoozle by this time, for,
though he did not approve of much of that sort of thing for himself, he
was very fond of petting little animals, who were not little boys. And
to tell the truth, it was not often he got a chance of petting his big
brother's dormice. It was quite pretty to see th