“Mr. Potts, what in the name of common sense is the matter?”

“It’s a mouse!” shouted Potts, in an excited manner.  “It’s a mouse in the goblet.  I nearly swallowed it, but I spat it out, and now I’ve got my foot on it.  Get a stick and kill it, quick!”

[Illustration:  MR. POTTS’ MOUSE]

Mrs. Potts was at first disposed to jump on a chair and scream, for, like all women, she feared a mouse very much more than she did a tiger.  But at Potts’ solicitation she got the broom and prepared to demolish the mouse when Potts lifted his foot.  He drew back, and she aimed a fearful blow at the object and missed it.  Then, as it did not move, she took a good look at it.  Then she threw down the broom, and after casting a look of scorn at Potts, she said,

“Come to bed, you old fool! that’s not a mouse.”

“What d’you mean?”

“Why, you simpleton, that’s the baby’s India-rubber bottle-top that I put in the goblet to keep it sweet.  You ought to be ashamed of yourself carrying on in this manner at one o’clock in the morning.”

Then Potts turned in.  After this he will drink at the pump.

* * * * *

In the course of the conversation I remarked that I had seen some men fixing Potts’ roof recently; and when I asked Potts if anything was the matter, he said,

“My roof was shingled originally; but as it leaked, I had the shingles removed and a gravel-and-felt roof put on.  The first night after it was finished there was a very high wind, which blew the gravel off with such force that it broke thirty-four panes of glass in Butterwick’s house, next door.  The wind also tore up the felt and blew it over the edge, so that it hung down over the front of the house like a curtain.  Of course it made the rooms pitch-dark, and I did not get up until one o’clock in the afternoon, but lay there wondering how it was the night seemed so long.

“Then I had a tin roof put on, and it did well enough for a while.  But whenever there was a heavy rain or the wind was high, it used to rattle all night with a noise like the battle of Gettysburg.  At last it began to leak, and a tinner sent a man around to find the hole.  He spent a week on that roof, and he spread half a ton of solder over it, but still it leaked.  And finally, when the snow came, the water trickled down the wall and ran into an eight-hundred-dollar piano, which will be closed out at a low figure to anybody who wants mahogany kindling-wood.  When the tin was removed and the new slate roof was put on, the slates used to get loose and slide down on the head of the hired girl while she was hanging up the clothes.  And when the man came to replace the slates, he plunged off the roof and broke four ribs and his leg, whereupon he sued me for damages.  And while the case was pending in court a snow-storm came.  The snow blew in under the slates, and my oldest boy spent the day with some of his friends snow-balling and sledding in the garret.  Then the snow on the garret floor melted and wet the wall-paper down stairs, so that the house became frightfully damp, and we had to move over to the hotel for a fortnight.