rots, a portion of Dan'l's last year's store.

The next to be taken out was a hedgehog, a prize of his own discovering,
and captured one day asleep and tightly rolled up beneath one of the
Portugal laurels.

The minute before its box was open, the hedgehog was actively
perambulating its dark prison, but the moment it was touched it became a
ball, in which form it was rolled out on to the rough floor close to a
flower-pot saucer of bread and milk, smuggled up directly after
breakfast each morning.

Next came the large grey rat, captured originally in the steel trap, and
whose first act might have been anticipated. It did not resent its
owner's handling; but the moment it was set down it darted under the
loose boards, and remained there until tempted forth by the smell of the
bread and milk, and a tempting piece of candle-end, the former of which
it helped the hedgehog to eat.

The mice, which lived in the old cigar-box--not white mice, nor those
furry little sleepers given to hiding away in nooks and corners for
elongated naps, but the regular grey cheese-nibblers--next, after a good
deal of scratching, took Dexter's attention. As soon as the lid was
open, and the boy's hand thrust in, they ran up his fingers, and then
along his arm to his shoulder, wonderfully active and enterprising with
their sharp little noses, one even venturing right up the boy's head
after a pause by one ear, as if it looked like the cavernous entrance to
some extremely snug hiding-place.

"Quiet! Don't tickle," cried Dexter, as he gently put up one hand for
the mouse to run upon; and every movement was made so gently that the
little creatures were not alarmed, but rested gently upon the boy's
hand, as he lifted them down to where he had placed some scraps of
cheese and a biscuit, all articles of provender being derived from the
stores situated in his trousers-pockets, and that of his jacket.

The list was not yet complete, for an old wire trap had been turned into
a cage, and here dwelt Dexter's greatest favourite--about the
shabbiest-looking squirrel that ever exhibited bare patches upon its
skin, and a tail from which the plume-like hair had departed.

It cost five shillings, all the same, at a little broker's shop down in
the most poverty-stricken part of Coleby. It had been bought by the
broker at a sale in company with a parrot, a cockatoo, and a canary, all
being the property of a lady lately deceased. The canary died before he