sugar but not the trick, had been so named
by a Danish gentleman who had presented him to Lou and Amy.

The rat as it entered the library thought, doubtless, that it was a
pretty comfortable-looking place, or else it wouldn't have gone about
the room smelling and sniffing until it found a piece of sponge-cake,
knocked by the canary from the wires of its cage.

That little breeze went on blowing across Uncle Leonard's head, and
directly he gave a rousing "ashoo!" of a sneeze. Such an
"a-a-sh-sh-shoo," that he actually sneezed himself into a sitting
position. The rat was more startled at such a noise than at all the
carpenters had made, and dropping the cake, peeped from behind an
ottoman where it took refuge.

Cattegat jumped up and looked at Uncle Leonard as if to ask him if he
had made that noise, and then glanced about the room.

"What can ail the cat!" exclaimed Uncle Leonard, as Cattegat went across
the floor in about three springs. Then quickly closing the yard door, he
called, "A rat! a rat!" as the rat ran from behind the ottoman.

Cattegat and the rat raced headlong around the room once, and Uncle
Leonard nearly kicked himself off his feet as the rat slipped unhurt by
him. Then away went the rat out of the library through the other door,
along the hall, and up the front stairs; away tore Cattegat not far
behind it; and quickly in pursuit trotted Uncle Leonard, calling, "Catch
him, Cattegat; catch him, Cattegat!"

At the moment, Lou, a very handy boy about the house, was in a
second-story room near the head of the stairs, and had just finished
gluing in the leg of Amy's rocking-chair. He had taken the chair there
to mend, because the floor was not carpeted, but smoothly varnished, and
any glue dropped could be easily removed. Amy stood watching him as she
slowly untied a package of prepared chalk for the teeth, with which she
had shortly before returned from the drug store.

"Gracious! what's coming up stairs?" said Lou, placing the glue brush on
the chair beside the glue-pot, and stepping to the door.

"Look out for the rat!" shouted Uncle Leonard.

Amy instantly sprang on the first object at hand, her just-mended
rocking-chair, which gave way, of course, and over she went. However,
she broke her fall by catching at the chair holding the glue-pot and
brush, though the glue rolled to the right and the brush to the left.
The package of prepared chalk, that had received an upward pitch as Amy
had toppled