“Here are just the creatures,” thought Popopo, “to place upon the woman’s hats.  Their fur is almost as soft as the plumage of the birds, and it strikes me the mice are remarkably pretty and graceful animals.  Moreover, they now pass their lives in stealing, and were they obliged to remain always upon women’s hats their morals would be much improved.”

So he exercised a charm that drew all the mice from the cellar and placed them upon the hats in the glass case, where they occupied the places the birds had vacated and looked very becoming—­at least, in the eyes of the unworldly knook.  To prevent their running about and leaving the hats Popopo rendered them motionless, and then he was so pleased with his work that he decided to remain in the shop and witness the delight of the milliner when she saw how daintily her hats were now trimmed.

She came in the early morning, accompanied by her sister, and her face wore a sad and resigned expression.  After sweeping and dusting the shop and drawing the blinds she opened the glass case and took out a hat.

But when she saw a tiny gray mouse nestling among the ribbons and laces she gave a loud shriek, and, dropping the hat, sprang with one bound to the top of the table.  The sister, knowing the shriek to be one of fear, leaped upon a chair and exclaimed: 

“What is it?  Oh! what is it?”

“A mouse!” gasped the milliner, trembling with terror.

Popopo, seeing this commotion, now realized that mice are especially disagreeable to human beings, and that he had made a grave mistake in placing them upon the hats; so he gave a low whistle of command that was heard only by the mice.

Instantly they all jumpped from the hats, dashed out the open door of the glass case and scampered away to their cellar.  But this action so frightened the milliner and her sister that after giving several loud screams they fell upon their backs on the floor and fainted away.

Popopo was a kind-hearted knook, but on witnessing all this misery, caused by his own ignorance of the ways of humans, he straightway wished himself at home, and so left the poor women to recover as best they could.

Yet he could not escape a sad feeling of responsibility, and after thinking upon the matter he decided that since he had caused the milliner’s unhappiness by freeing the birds, he could set the matter right by restoring them to the glass case.  He loved the birds, and disliked to condemn them to slavery again; but that seemed the only way to end the trouble.

So he set off to find the birds.  They had flown a long distance, but it was nothing to Popopo to reach them in a second, and he discovered them sitting upon the branches of a big chestnut tree and singing gayly.

When they saw the knook the birds cried: 

“Thank you, Popopo.  Thank you for setting us free.”

“Do not thank me,” returned the knook, “for I have come to send you back to the millinery shop.”