At this all the nine boy-rats set up a cry, and gave him such hard hugs, that the old rat had to slap one or two to make them stop. Then, with a hop, skip, and jump, he was up at the top of the hole.
"No one here," he said; so he gave one hop more, and was out in the room.
It was a big room, but nice and warm. The sun had set, and it was dark; but the old rat saw by the fire that no one was in it. The cook had gone out in the yard to get more wood to put on the fire, and the cat had gone out in the yard too, to have a talk, on the top of the wall, with the gray cat who came from next door. And now the old rat did hear the two cats say:
"M-e-w! m-i-a-u!
M-i-a-u! m-e-w!
Ffts! ffts! ffts!
How are you!"
"Bless me!" said the old rat, "why, how they talk! how they snap and spit! Why! the gray cat next door will bite off our cat's nose in no time at all, if they go on this way! I hope he will bite it off, for, you see, if she has no nose she can not find me out."
The old rat gave a wink of his eye, and a slap of his tail, as he said this; and then it was high time to poke his nose in and out of the pots and pans, to see what was in them.
By and by, that nose of his took off the lid of a box. "Now for a peep to see what is in-side," said the old gray rat. "Now let us see what I can put my paw on this time."
My! what eyes he made when he saw ten new laid eggs in the box.
"Why! here is one for each of my nine boys, and one more," he said. "What fun to suck them! But I must get them into my hole as soon as you can say 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, or the cook will come in, and the cat too."
And now he had a hard time; for when the rat did try to take an egg up in one paw, it was so big that, pop! it went with a roll back in the box.