have even risked wet feet, on a damp afternoon, to get
there--every cat will understand how wild must have been the
infatuation!

I tried to reason myself out of it. "Toots," I would say, "you banished
him from your master's room, and you have probably banished him from
Terence's. Why pursue the matter farther? So pitiful an object is
unworthy of your revenge."

"Very true," I would reply to myself, "but I want a turn in the air.
I'll just step down as far as the saddle-room once more, and make myself
finally comfortable by looking behind the old barrel. I don't think I
went quite round it."

There is no delusion so strong when it besets you, or so complete a
failure in its results--as the hope of getting relief from an
infatuation by indulging it once more. It grows worse every time.

One day I was stealing away as usual, when I caught my master's eye with
a peculiar expression in it. He was gnawing his moustaches too. I am
very fond of him, and I ran back to the chair and looked up and mewed,
for I wanted to know what was the matter.

"You're a curious cat, Toots," said he; "but I suppose you're only like
the rest of the world. I did think you did care a little bit for me.
It's only the cream, is it, old fellow? As a companion, you prefer
Terence? Eh? Well, off with you!"

But I need hardly say that I would not leave him. It was no want of love
for him that led me to the saddle-room. I was not base enough to forget
that he had been my friend in need, even if he had been less amiable to
me since. All that evening I lay on his breast and slept. _But I dreamt
of the mouse!_

The next morning he went out riding.

"He will not miss me now," thought I. "I will devote the morning to
hunting through that wretched room inch by inch, for the last time. It
will satisfy me that the mouse is not there, and it really is a duty to
try and convince myself of this, that I may be cured of an infatuation
which causes annoyance to so excellent a master."

I hurried off as rapidly as befitted the vigour of the resolution, and
when I got into the saddle-room I saw the mouse. And when the mouse saw
me he fled like the wind.

I confess that I should have lost him then, but that a hole on which he
had reckoned was stopped up, and he had to turn.

What a chase it was! Never did I meet his equal for audacity and
fleetness. But I knew the holes as well as he did, and cut him off at
every one. Round and round we went--behind the bar