creatures the weasel killed, and left
to rot and to taint the air, so that it quite spoilt his morning ramble
over the fields. With a puff the wind came along and blew a dead leaf,
one of last year's leaves, over the trap, and so hid it completely.

"The weasel saw the mouth of the drain, and thinking to be safe in a
minute darted at it, and was snapped up by the gin. The sudden shock
deprived him of sense or motion, and well for him it did, for had he
squeaked or moved ever so little the man with the bucket must have seen
or heard him. After a time he came to himself, and again began to beg
the rat to help him; but the rat, having had his revenge on the mouse,
did not much care to trouble about it, and, besides, he remembered how
very wolfish and fierce the weasel had looked at him when in his hole.
At least he thought he would have a night's sleep in comfort first, for
he had been afraid to sleep a wink with the weasel so near. Now the
weasel was in the gin he could have a nap.

"All night long the weasel was in the gin, and to a certainty he would
have been seen--for the bailiff would have been sure to come and look at
his trap--but if you remember, Bevis, dear, that was the very day you
were lost (while asleep under the oak), and everything was confusion,
and the gin was forgotten. Well, in the morning the weasel begged so
piteously of the rat to help him again, that the rat began to think he
would, now he had had a good sleep, when just as he was peeping out
along you came, Bevis, dear, and found the weasel in the gin.

"Now, I daresay you remember the talk you had with the weasel, and what
the mouse said; well, the rat was listening all the while, and he heard
the weasel say to you that he always killed the rats. 'Aha!' thought
the rat, 'catch me helping you again, sir;' and the weasel heard him say
it. So when you stepped on the spring and loosed the weasel, he did not
dare go into the drain, knowing that the rat (while awake) was stronger
than he, but hobbled as well as he could across to the wood-pile. There
he stopped, exhausted, and stiff from his wounds. Meantime the rat
deliberated how best he could drive the treacherous weasel away from the
place.

"At night, accordingly, he cautiously left his hole and went across to
the tub where Pan was sleeping, curled up comfortably within. The end of
Pan's chain, where it was fastened to the staple outside the tub, was
not of iron, but tar-cord. The last link had