that Clara had made friends with the janitor, also that the trap
was still there.

The janitor no longer put cheese in it, and he didn't set the spring
any more, but he still followed his orders and so, every morning,
moved it back by the door of the little mousehouse.

A fat Washington mouse guided George to the mousehole in the
conference room. George looked inside and sniffed the smoky air
distastefully.

There were seven men seated at a long table, with a glass of water in
front of each. This was a liquid that even George knew was hardly
designed to lubricate the way to a quick agreement.

"_Bomb_ them, I say," the General cried, smashing his fist down on the
table. "Hit them hard with atomic weapons. Hit them _now_, before
_they_ have a chance to strike first."

"But that's one of our best plants," a civilian from the A.E.C.
protested. "We don't want to blow it up, not for a few paltry mice."

"Couldn't we send them to Alaska?" the man from Alaskan Affairs asked
timidly, wondering what he was doing there.

"How about traps?" the man from Fish and Wildlife said. "We have some
honeys."

"But _that's just it_!" George said in a loud voice, and they all
turned to look at him. "My wife would like that trap by our front door
removed. She's afraid that it might hurt the children."

"_Who_ are _you_?" the man from Immigration & Naturalization demanded
sharply.

"I'm George," George said. "It's my house that has the trap in front
of it."

"What are you doing _here_?" the man from the F.B.I. demanded. "Spying
on a closed meeting!"

"I'm _not_ spying!" George exclaimed. "I just came to ask you to
please remove the trap."

* * * * *

The man from the F.B.I. looked at him with something close to pity.
"It's not that simple any more," he said. "Don't you realize what a
threat you comprise?"

"No," George said, scampering up the leg of the table and walking to
its center. "We're not a threat to anybody. We're just mice. It's not
our nature to be a threat to anybody."

Then, as he looked around the table at the seven huge faces that
surrounded him, he immediately saw that they were all scared half to
death because he was a mouse, and he had a sudden premonition that he
would not come out of the meeting alive. So he opened his mind to let
his family and all the other telepathic mice hear everything that was
happening.

"Don't tell me you don't fully realize," the Fish and Wildl