hat he is?"

"No," said the house-mouse. "It's not the field-mouse at all. I don't
know anything about him. I have never even set eyes on him, that I know
of. But, as we know, we have another big cousin, called the rat."

"I have heard a little about him," said the wood-mouse. "But I have
never seen him. Is he of the same kind as the field-mouse?"

"He is much worse," said the house-mouse. "To begin with, he is so
awfully big. I should say he is as big as five fat mice put together. He
is quite black, with a long, scaly tail and small ears. He has horrid
teeth and a long tongue. And he is greedier than I know how to tell you.
He plays just the same part in the house that the field-mouse does among
your people. And what happens to you happens to me: I often get blamed
for his mean tricks. Just think, one day last year, he bit the odd man
in the nose as he lay sleeping one afternoon in the hayloft. He took
quite a little bit of flesh, so that the man had to go to the doctor and
walk about with a bandage for many days."

"That's horrid," said the wood-mouse. "And it's quite unlike a mouse's
nature. We are not beasts of prey, that I _do_ know. Do you really
believe he's our cousin?"

"He is indeed," said the house-mouse. "I know it; and there's no
mistaking it either, when you see him. He is the perfect image of a
mouse, though he is clumsier. But he is a disgrace to the family; and
that's a fact. And fancy what happened. I was just outside the larder: I
have a little waiting-hole there, where I sit and wait when I come too
early and when my young lady is still in the kitchen. And I was sitting
there on the evening it happened; I had been sitting there some time,
for it looked as though my young lady was never going. I must tell you
she was waiting for the odd man, who had ridden off to the doctor with
his nose. He was to have his supper when he came home. He arrived at
last and, while he sat there eating his food and talking to the young
lady about what had happened, she said that those rats were most
disgusting animals and ought to be exterminated in every possible way.
'Yes,' she said. 'I can't abide them for the life of me. And then they
are so hideous to look at. They look quite wicked. But I must intercede
for the dear little mice. I love them. I have a tiny one, whom I know
well and am ever so fond of. I caught her one day in the sugar-basin,
the little thief!'

"'And didn't you kill her, miss?' asked the man.