over, then came down in time to plentifully powder both her
and Lou.

The latter had turned to clear the way for the rat and Cattegat, not
more than an instant later than Amy had taken alarm, but the glue had
been spilled more quickly. And though Lou jumped over the pool of glue
safely, he landed right under the shower of chalk, and directly upon the
slippery glue brush. Presto! down went Lou, and shooting over the smooth
floor, vanished under the bed at the far end of the room, as though he
had been a clown playing in a pantomime.

Amy, so filled with laughter, could scarce manage to climb on the sound
chair before the rat and Cattegat came whizzing through the doorway;
both leaped clear of the spilled glue, and scampered in a flash across
the floor into the next room, and so on through several other rooms that
communicated.

"Oho! bravo, Cattegat!" said Uncle Leonard, as he came on, running at a
wonderful rate for him. Right through the doorway he ran, but on seeing
Amy, he was about to lessen his speed, and have her join in the chase,
when he stepped in the pool of glue. Slip, slip, slide across the room,
went Uncle Leonard, with his feet getting farther apart, as though the
floor was the slipperiest of ice. He slid to and against a wash-stand,
and then sank down slowly and gracefully at its foot in a way that would
have done credit to a champion gymnast. But he shook the stand so
violently that the water-pitcher was shaken over within its basin, and
emptied half its contents upon his head.

Amy rushed to his aid, righted the pitcher, and inquired if he was hurt.

"Not a bit," said Uncle Leonard, getting again on his feet, smiling
mirthfully at his own dripping coat, and giving one of those jolly
laughs of his at Amy's chalk-powdered head. "Come along, my dear,"
continued he; "keep the chase up, or the rat will yet have the best of
it. But where's Lou?"

"Here I am!" answered Lou, poking his laughing, powdered face from under
the bed, and crawling out. And away they all followed the chase, Uncle
Leonard kicking off his gluey slippers, and catching up a pair of Papa
Wilson's.

Cattegat and the rat in the mean time had been racing up and down the
front bedrooms, frightening Mamma Wilson and Aunt Laura into climbing up
on one of the beds, and Cattegat had distinguished himself by knocking
over a sewing basket and a screen. As the pursuers appeared upon the
scene, rat and cat ran out into the hallway again, throu