118

THE TRIVIAL FORTUNES OF MOLGE 142

THE PASSING OF THE BLACK RAT 171

THE FOX'S TRICKS ARE MANY; ONE IS ENOUGH FOR THE URCHIN 192

[Illustration]

"WEE TIM'ROUS BEASTIES"

MUS RIDICULUS

Mus ridiculus! The taunt had been flung at him by a stout field-vole, and,
by reason of its novelty as well as of its intrinsic impertinence, had
sunk deep into his memory. He had felt at the time that "Wee sleekit,
cowrin', tim'rous beastie" was but a poor rejoinder. But he knew no Latin
and chose what was next in obscurity. Besides, he was a young mouse then,
and breathless with excitement.

The scene rose vividly before him--the moon shining grimly overhead, and
the mouse-folk stealing from the half-threshed stack across two fields
into the farmstead.

Since that night he had never entered a wheat-stack, for fear of the
leaving of it. For there are some things which, from a mouse standpoint,
will not bear repetition.

There had been a grey, slanting ghost-swish above, and his brother had
vanished skywards from within an inch of his side. He had turned to stone
before two ice-cold eyes, and realized the honest yard of snake behind
them. A stoat had passed him with its mouth too full to snap--and all
within two fields.

[Illustration: MUS RIDICULUS!]

Mus ridiculus! The vole was not so far wrong after all, for could
anything, whose intelligence was otherwise than laughable, be in his
present plight? In front of him were three horizontal wires, above him
were nine more, on either side an upright wooden wall, behind him a
slanting one, whose lower extremity nipped his tail. On the floor lay
innumerable crumbs of evil-smelling cheese.

When the door of the trap had clicked behind him, he had naturally been
startled. His fright, however, was due not so much to his surroundings--he
was used to close quarters--as to the forcible restriction of his tail.
Still, the cheese was within easy reach, and he had determined to enjoy
it. Indeed, he ate his full. Now, cheese on an empty mouse stomach acts
as an intoxicant. He had fallen into a drowsy slumber, crouched in a back
corner of the trap, and so he slept for an hour.

His awakening was gradual, but rude. It was due to a steadily increasing
discomfort in his tail. It was not the first time, however, that he had
realized that a long, tapering tail has its disadvantages as well as its
uses