"That must be a new story," your Aunt Amy said, and Mrs. Mouser looked
surprised as she replied:
"Well, well, I don't understand what all the animals around here have
talked about! This is the third or fourth very old story that you
haven't heard, and when I came in here to visit this afternoon, I had an
idea that everything I might offer to tell, you had heard from some of
the others."
"Suppose you tell me what Mrs. Lioness did to Mr. Rat?" your Aunt Amy
suggested, and Mrs. Mouser began:
"Once upon a time--you can see from the beginning how old this story
is--Mr. Rat ate his way into the place where they keep animals to show
them off--a Zoological Garden, I believe Mr. Man calls it. Well, after
Mr. Rat got in he found a Mrs. Lion who was all alone, and feeling as
though she really needed company. She was just as kind to Mr. Rat as she
could be, and asked him why he didn't make his home there with her.
"'I would like to,' Mr. Rat said, 'for you seem to be a very nice kind
of a Mrs. Lion; but when Mr. Man, who owns this place, comes along, he
will kill me if he can.'
"'I would like to see Mr. Man try to hurt any one who was visiting me!'
Mrs. Lion said sharply, as she held up her paw. 'Do you see that? I
could kill Mr. Man with it in a minute if I struck him.'
"As she spoke she laid her paw on Mr. Rat in play, just to show him what
she could do, and the 'play' was so rough that the breath of life was
squeezed out of Mr. Rat in a jiffy.
"Now you might have supposed that Mrs. Lion would feel badly because she
had killed Mr. Rat without meaning to; but instead of that she said,
looking at his body:
"'What a poor kind of a creature he must be, when he allows himself to
be killed with what was no more than a love pat!'
"And a little mouse, who was sitting in a hole in the wall, having seen
all that happened, squeaked with a nervous snicker:
"'A lion's sport is altogether too strenuous for such as us, and if Mr.
Rat had been wise, he would have kept well outside the cage, fearing
your play even more than your anger.'
[Illustration: "What a poor creature Mr. Rat is to be killed with a love
pat, said Mrs. Lion.]
"'It seems to me he was a wise little mouse,' your Aunt Amy said, and
Mrs. Mouser replied with a sneer:
"He was a good deal like many others I know of, exceeding wise after
they have seen the result of another's folly. But it seems to me that we
are talking altogether too much about mice."