On his way home from the high school, Pyotr Demyanitch went into a general shop and bought a mouse-trap for fifteen kopecks.  At dinner he fixed a little bit of his rissole on the hook, and set the trap under the sofa, where there were heaps of the pupils’ old exercise-books, which Praskovya used for various domestic purposes.  At six o’clock in the evening, when the worthy Latin master was sitting at the table correcting his pupils’ exercises, there was a sudden “klop!” so loud that my uncle started and dropped his pen.  He went at once to the sofa and took out the trap.  A neat little mouse, the size of a thimble, was sniffing the wires and trembling with fear.

“Aha,” muttered Pyotr Demyanitch, and he looked at the mouse malignantly, as though he were about to give him a bad mark.  “You are cau—­aught, wretch!  Wait a bit!  I’ll teach you to eat my grammar!”

Having gloated over his victim, Poytr Demyanitch put the mouse-trap on the floor and called: 

“Praskovya, there’s a mouse caught!  Bring the kitten here!

“I’m coming,” responded Praskovya, and a minute later she came in with the descendant of tigers in her arms.

“Capital!” said Pyotr Demyanitch, rubbing his hands.  “We will give him a lesson. . . .  Put him down opposite the mouse-trap . . . that’s it. . . .  Let him sniff it and look at it. . . .  That’s it. . . .”

The kitten looked wonderingly at my uncle, at his arm-chair, sniffed the mouse-trap in bewilderment, then, frightened probably by the glaring lamplight and the attention directed to him, made a dash and ran in terror to the door.

“Stop!” shouted my uncle, seizing him by the tail, “stop, you rascal!  He’s afraid of a mouse, the idiot!  Look!  It’s a mouse!  Look!  Well?  Look, I tell you!”

Pyotr Demyanitch took the kitten by the scruff of the neck and pushed him with his nose against the mouse-trap.

“Look, you carrion!  Take him and hold him, Praskovya. . . .  Hold him opposite the door of the trap. . . .  When I let the mouse out, you let him go instantly. . . .  Do you hear? . . .  Instantly let go!  Now!”

My uncle assumed a mysterious expression and lifted the door of the trap. . . .  The mouse came out irresolutely, sniffed the air, and flew like an arrow under the sofa. . . .  The kitten on being released darted under the table with his tail in the air.

“It has got away! got away!” cried Pyotr Demyanitch, looking ferocious.  “Where is he, the scoundrel?  Under the table?  You wait. . .”

My uncle dragged the kitten from under the table and shook him in the air.

“Wretched little beast,” he muttered, smacking him on the ear.  “Take that, take that!  Will you shirk it next time?  Wr-r-r-etch. . . .”

Next day Praskovya heard again the summons.

“Praskovya, there is a mouse caught!  Bring the kitten here!”

After the outrage of the previous day the kitten had taken refuge under the stove and had not come out all night.  When Praskovya pulled him out and, carrying him by the scruff of the neck into the study, set him down before the mouse-trap, he trembled all over and mewed piteously.