o
were also on the piazza. "He's mewing dreadfully, and I can't find him."

"He's worse than a baby," said Eunice, unwinding herself from the
comfortable, twisted-up position in the steamer chair, which she loved.
"Couldn't you let him cry a little while and give him a lesson?"

"I wouldn't mind giving _him_ a lesson, but I'm afraid he'd give me one
in patience," returned Cricket, laughing. "I'm sure I don't want to
listen to that music long. There, he's stopped again, now."

But five minutes later, George W. renewed his complaints.

"Now I'm going to let him cry!" said Cricket, returning in despair from
another search. So down she sat, shutting her ears to outside sounds in
her comfortable fashion.

Presently grandma appeared at the hall door.

"Cricket, my dear, George Washington seems to want something. Don't you
think you'd better try and find him?"

"Grandma, he's been crying and weeping for an hour at least, and I just
can't find him. But I'll look again."

But wherever George W. was, he was certainly securely hidden. He cried
now and then at intervals, but it was impossible to locate the sound,
since it came first from one side, then from another.

"He's between the floors somewhere," said Will, who had joined the
search. "The question is, where?"

"We'll have to decide that question at once," said auntie, "because we
can scarcely have all the floors in the house taken up. How could he
have gotten in?"

"Perhaps through some small hole in the garret floor. He's probably
forgotten the way back. Or, perhaps there's some hole down cellar where
he got inside, and ran up after the mice."

"Perhaps the mice have gotten the best of him, and are tearing him limb
from limb," suggested Archie, making such a horrible face that Helen
retreated behind Aunt Jean in terror.

All the afternoon they followed the sounds at intervals, listening at
the floor, and calling over and over. George W. seemed to be exploring
the entire interior of the house. Late in the afternoon, the cries came
more constantly from the floor of the trunkroom, a small apartment off
the garret, and directly over Eunice's room. There was a small knot-hole
in the floor, and the light from a window fell directly on it, probably
attracting George W. there. Saws and hatchets were brought, and the boys
soon had a piece of the floor up, making a hole large enough for several
cats the size of George to come up.

"George evidently likes this sort of