Toots never goes to strangers as a rule," added my mistress.

Everybody is proud of being _exceptionally_ favoured. It was this last
stroke, I am convinced, that rubbed him the right way. A gratified
blandness pervaded his countenance. He made no further attempts to
dislodge me, and I settled myself into the angles of his shoulder and
affected to go to sleep.

"What are you going to do with him?" he asked, crossing one long leg
over the other with a convulsive abruptness very trying to my balance,
and to the strength of the arm-chair.

Both the ladies began to mew. They were _so_ sorry to leave me behind,
but it was _quite_ impossible to take me. They couldn't bear to think of
my being unhappy, and didn't know where in the world to find me a home.

"I wish _you_ would take him!" said my mistress.

I listened breathlessly for the gentleman's reply.

"Pets are not in the least in my line," he said. "I am a bachelor, you
know, of very tidy habits. I dislike trouble, and have a rooted
objection to encumbrances."

"We hear you have a pet mouse, though," said my mistress. He laughed
awkwardly.

"My dear young lady, I never said that my practice always squared with
my principles. Helpless and troublesome creatures have sometimes an
insinuating way with them, which forms an additional reason for avoiding
them, especially if one is weak-minded. And----"

"And you _have_ a pet mouse?"

He sat suddenly upright with another jerk, which nearly shot me into the
fire-place, and said,

"I'll tell you about it, for upon my word I wish you could see the
little beggar. It was one afternoon when I came in from riding, that I
found a mouse sitting on the fender. I could only see his back, with the
tail twitching, and I noticed that a piece had been bitten out of his
left ear. The little wretch must have heard me quite well, but he sat on
as if the place belonged to him.

"'You're pretty cool!' I said; and being rather the reverse myself, I
threw the Queen's Regulations at him, and he disappeared. But it
bothered me, for I hate mice in one's quarters. You never know what
mischief they mayn't be doing. You put valuable papers carefully away,
and the next time you go to the cupboard, they are reduced to shreds.
The little brutes take the lining of your slippers to line their nests.
They keep you awake at night--in short, they're detestable. But I am not
fond of killing things myself, though I've a sort of a conscience about
know