ice?" said the mouse to the
sweetmeat-seller. "Yes," answered the man, and he gave one. The mouse
began to eat it and thought it very nasty indeed.

"Why, there is no sugar in it!" exclaimed the mouse.

"No," said the man; "we have no sugar in this country. The few
sugar-canes we have are so dear, that poor people like myself cannot
buy them."

"Then take my sugar-canes," cried the mouse.

"No," said the man. "Where should I find the money to pay you for
them? They would be all used in making sweetmeats."

"Take them," said the mouse; "I give them to you."

The sweetmeat-seller took them and began making sweetmeats of all
kinds, so that he used all the sugar-canes.

"Why have you used all my sugar-canes?" cried the mouse.

"Did not I tell you I should do so?" said the man.

"You are a thief!" cried the mouse, and he knocked down the
sweetmeat-seller, seized all his sweetmeats, and ran off with them.

"What shall I do now?" cried the sweetmeat-seller. "I have no money to
buy flour and ghee to make more sweetmeats with; and if I quarrel with
the mouse, he will doubtless kill me."

Meanwhile the mouse ran on and on till he reached a country, the Raja
of which had a great many cows--hundreds of cows. The mouse stopped at
the pasture-ground of these cows. Now, the cowherds were so poor they
could not buy bread every day, and sometimes they ate bread which was
twelve days old. When the mouse arrived, the cowherds were eating
their bread, and it was very stale and mouldy.

"Why do you eat that stale bread?" said the mouse.

"Because we have no money to buy any other with," answered the
cowherds.

"Look at all these sweetmeats," said the mouse. "Take them and eat
them instead of that stale bread."

"But if we eat them, we must pay you for them, and where shall we get
the money?" said the cowherds.

"Oh, never mind the money," said the mouse.

So the cowherds took the sweetmeats and ate them all up. At this the
mouse was furious. He stuck a pole into the ground, and ran and
fetched ropes, and tied the cowherds hand and foot to the pole. Then
he took all the cows and ran off with them.

He ran on and on till he got to a country where there were no fowls,
no cows, no buffaloes, no meat of any kind; and the people in it did
not even know what milk and meat were. The day the mouse arrived was
the day the Raja's daughter was to be married, and a great many people
were assembled together. The Raja's cooks were c