and began to cry, for he had no pice wherewith to buy
another.

The mouse ran on and on until at last he came to another country, in
which there were no knives or sickles to cut the grass with. There the
mouse saw a man pulling the grass out of the ground with his hands.

"You will cut your hands," said the mouse.

"There are no knives here," said the man, "so I must pull up the grass
in this way."

"You must take my razor then," said the mouse.

"Suppose your razor should break? I could not buy you another," said
the man.

"Never mind if it does break," said the mouse, "I give it to you as a
present."

So the man took the razor and began cutting the grass, and as he was
cutting, the razor broke.

"Oh, why have you broken my razor?" exclaimed the mouse.

"Did not I tell you it would break?" answered the man.

The mouse snatched up the man's blanket and ran off with it. The
grass-cutter began to cry. "What shall I do?" said he. "The mouse has
carried away my blanket, and I have not money wherewith to buy
another." And he went home very sad.

Meanwhile the mouse ran on and on until he arrived at another country,
where he saw a grain merchant chopping up sugar-canes; only as he had
no blanket or cloth to lay the canes on, he chopped them up on the
ground, and so they got dirty.

"Why do you chop up your canes on the ground?" said the mouse; "they
all get dirty."

"What can I do?" answered the man. "I have no pice wherewith to buy a
blanket to chop them on."

"Then why don't you take mine?" said the mouse.

"If I took yours it would get cut, and I have no money to buy you
another," said the grain merchant.

"Never mind; I don't want another," said the mouse.

So the man took the blanket, and of course he cut it. When he had
finished chopping up his sugar-canes, he gave it back to the mouse.

When the mouse saw the blanket was full of holes, he was very angry
indeed with the man, and seizing all the sugar-canes he ran away with
them as fast as he could. The grain merchant began to cry. "What shall
I do?" said he; "I have no more sugar-canes." And he went home very
sorrowful.

Then the mouse ran on and on till he came to another country, where he
stopped at a sweetmeat-seller's shop. Now in this country there was no
salt and no sugar. And the sweetmeat-seller made his sweetmeats of
flour and ghee without either sugar or salt, so that they were very
nasty.

"Will you give me some sweetmeats for a p