creature!—­would probably make her feel ill-at-ease in bachelor quarters, if we could change places.  Her fur is really almost mangy, and she has nothing to speak of in the way of a tail.  But she is a worthy soul.  And some day, when the Captain and I are going to town without much luggage—­or if she should happen to be collecting in the country,—­I will certainly look up a few of my worst bones for the Fund.

I really hesitate to approach the subject of my one source of discontent.  It seems strange that there should be any crook in a lot so smooth as ours.  Plenty to eat and drink, handsome coats, no encumbrances, and a temperament naturally inclined—­at least, in my case—­towards taking life easy.  And yet, as I lay stretched full-length down one of my master’s knees the other night, before a delicious fire, and after such a saucerful of creamy tea which he could not drink himself—­I kept waking up with uncomfortable starts, fancying I saw on the edge of the fender—­but I will tell the matter in proper order.

I turned round to get my back to it, but I thought of it all the same; and as every hair of my moustaches twitched, with the vexation of my thoughts, I observed that my master was pulling and biting at his, and glaring at the fire as if he expected to see—­however, I do not trouble myself about the crumples in his rose-leaves.  He is big enough to take care of himself.  My own grievance I will state plainly and at once.  It may be a relief to my mind, which I sometimes fear will be unhinged by dwelling on the thought of—­but to begin.

It will easily be understood that after my arrival at my new home, I waited anxiously for the appearance of the mouse; but it will hardly be credited by any one who knows me, or who knew my grandmother, that I saw it and let it escape me.  It was seated on the sugar-basin, just as the Captain had described it.  The torn ear, the jerking tail, the bright eyes—­all were there.

If this story falls into the paws of any young cat who wishes to avoid the mortifications which have embittered my favoured existence, let me warn him to remember that a creature who has lived on friendly terms with human beings cannot be judged by common rules.  Many a mouse’s eye as bright as this one had I seen, but hitherto never one that did not paralyze before my own.

He looked at me—­I looked at him.  His tail jerked—­mine responded.  Our whiskers twitched—­joy filled my brain to intoxication—­I crept—­I crouched—­I sprang—­

He was not spell-bound—­he did not even run away.  With a cool twinkle of that hateful eye, and one twitch of the ragged ear, he just overbalanced the silver sugar-pot and dropped to the ground, the basin and sugar falling on the top of him with a crash which made me start against my will.  I think that start just baulked the lightning flash of my second leap, and he was gone—­absolutely gone.  To add insult to injury, my master ran in from his bedroom and shouted—­“Stealing, Toots? confound you, you’ve knocked down my sugar-pot,” and threw both his hair-brushes at me.