Moses Mouse surprised him with a merry laugh.
"Ho!" he exclaimed. "Neither have I. If I had waited for an invitation I wouldn't be living in the farmhouse. I'd have shivered my days out in the barn."
Grunty Pig looked at his caller with growing interest. He would have said that so tiny a gentleman would be too timid to crowd in where he wasn't asked.
"Don't wait any longer for an invitation," Moses Mouse urged him. "Go to the farmhouse and walk right in."
"Oughtn't I to rap?" Grunty inquired.
"Certainly not!" said Moses Mouse. "Make yourself right at home. Act as if the farmhouse belonged to you. That's the way I do. And nobody ever bothers me, except Miss Kitty Cat—or Miss Snooper, as we Mice call her. Even she can't drive me away from the farmhouse. I lived there before she ever came to Pleasant Valley."
"She certainly couldn't drive me away," Grunty Pig muttered. "Besides, didn't you say she was away herself?"
"Yes!" said Moses Mouse. "And I hope she has gone for good."