both his hair-brushes
at me.

_I_ steal?--and, worse still, _I_ knock down anything, who have walked
among three dozen wine-glasses, on a shelf in the butler's pantry,
without making them jingle! But I must be calm, for there is more to
tell.

The mouse never returned. It was something, but it was not enough. My
pride had been deeply hurt, and it demanded revenge. At last I felt it
almost a grievance that I _did_ reign supreme in the Captain's quarters,
that the mouse did not come back--and let me catch him.

Besides our in-door man, my master had an Irish groom, and the groom had
a place (something between a saddle-room and a scullery) where _he_ said
he "kept what the master required," but where, the master said, Terence
kept what was not wanted, and lost what was.

There certainly were, to my knowledge, fifteen empty Day and Martin's
blacking-bottles in one corner, for I used occasionally to walk over
them to keep my feet in practice, and it was in this room that Terence
last had conscious possession of the hunting-breeches which were never
seen after the Captain's birthday, when Terence threw the clothes-brush
after me, because I would not drink the master's health in whisky, and
had to take the cleanest of the shoe brushes to his own coat, which was
dusty from lying in the corn-chest.

But he was a good-natured creature, and now and then, for a change, I
followed him into the saddle-room. I am thankful to say I have never
caught mice except for amusement, and a cat of daintier tastes does not
exist. But one has inherited instincts--and the musty, fusty, mousey
smell of the room did excite me a little. Besides, I practised my steps
among the blacking-bottles.

I was on the top of the most tottering part of the pile one afternoon,
when I saw a pair of bead-like eyes, and--yes, I could swear to it--a
torn ear. But before I could spring to the ground they had vanished
behind the corn-chest.

This was how it came about that when the Captain's room was cosiest, and
he and his friends were kindest, I used to steal away from luxuries
which are dear to every fibre of my constitution, and pat hastily down
to the dirty hole, where Terence accumulated old rubbish and misused and
mislaid valuables--in the wild hope that I might hear, smell, or see the
ragged-eared enemy of my peace.

What hours I have wasted, now blinking with sleep, now on the alert at
sounds like the revelries of mocking mice.

When I say that I