detestable.  But I am not fond of killing things myself, though I’ve a sort of a conscience about knowing how it’s done.  I don’t like leaving necessary executions to servants.  As to mice, you know—­poisoning is out of the question, on sanitary grounds.  ‘Catch-’em-alive’ traps are like a policeman who catches a pickpocket—­all the trouble of the prosecution is to come; and as to the traps with springs and spikes—­my man set one in my bedroom once, and in the middle of the night the mouse was caught.  For nearly an hour I doubt if I was much the happier of the two.  Every moment I thought the poor wretch would stop screaming, for I had ordered the trap in the belief that death was instantaneous.  At last I jumped up, and put the whole concern into my tub and held it under water.  The poor beast was dead in six seconds.  A catch-’em-alive trap and a tub of water is the most merciful death, I fancy; but I am rather in favour of letting one animal kill another.  It seems more natural, and fairer.  They have a run for their lives, so to speak.”

“And who did you get to kill your mouse?”

“Well, I know a youngster who has a terrier.  They are a perfect pair.  As like as two peas, and equally keen about sport—­they would go twenty miles to chase a bluebottle round an attic, sooner than not hunt something.  So I told him there was a mouse de trop in my rooms, and he promised to bring Nipper next morning.  I was going out hunting myself.

“The meet was early, and my man got breakfast at seven o’clock for me in my own quarters; and the first thing I saw when I came out of my bedroom was the mouse sitting on the edge of my Indian silver sugar-basin.  I knew him again by his ear.  And there he sat all breakfast-time, twitching his tail, and nibbling little bits of sugar, and watching me with such a pair of eyes!  Have you ever seen a mouse’s eyes close?  Upon my word, they are wonderfully beautiful, and it’s uncommonly difficult to hurt a creature with fine eyes.  I didn’t touch it, and as I was going out I looked back, and the mouse was looking after me.  I was a fool for looking back, for I can’t stand a pitiful expression in man or beast, and it put an end to Nipper’s sport, and left me with a mouse in my quarters—­a thing I hate.  I didn’t like to say I’d changed my mind about killing the mouse, but I wrote to Nipper’s master, and said I wouldn’t trouble him to come up for such a trifling matter.”

“So the mouse was safe?”

“Well, I thought so.  But the young fellow (who is very good-natured) wrote back to say it was no trouble whatever, and the letter lay on my mantel-piece till I came home and found that he and Nipper had broken a chair-leg, and two china plates.”

“Did they kill the mouse?”

“Well, no.  But I nearly killed Nipper in saving him; and the little rascal has lived with me ever since.”

The ladies seemed highly delighted with this anecdote, but, for my own part, I felt feverish to the tips of my claws, as I thought of the miserable creature who had usurped the place I wished to fill, and who might be the means of my having to fall back after all on the Deserted Cats’ Fund.  What bungling puss had had him under her paws, and allowed him to escape with a torn ear and the wariness of experience?  Let me but once catch sight of that twitching tail!——­