"And have you lived alone ever since?" asked Puss.
"Yes," replied the old man, "and the mice and the rats give me no peace. They eat up all my cheese and flour."
"I'll help you," said Puss. "Let me stay here to-night, and I'll catch every rat and mouse that bothers you inside the house."
"You can make up poetry as well as I can," said the old man, with a laugh. "Why, that's the first laugh I've had in many a long year. I like you, Sir Cat. You are an obliging sort of person. You shall have the best that my small home affords. I only hope you will rid the place of rats and mice."
"Leave that to me," replied Puss, with a grin.
GOOD RIDDANCE
NOW, let me see. In the last story we left little Puss, Junior, in the house of the old man who brought his wife home in a wheelbarrow. Well, Puss heard him take off his shoes and get into bed, and then out went the light. I guess the old man leaned out of bed and blew it out. But Puss didn't go to bed. Oh, my, no! He slipped off his red-topped boots, so as not to frighten the rats and the mice and stole softly over to the window. The moon was bright and the stars were twinkling in the sky.
"It's a long time since I've been a mouser!" laughed Puss to himself. "I wonder if I have lost my cunning?" And he sat down by the window and crossed his leg over the other. "Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse," and it was not the night before Christmas, either. Pretty soon the sound of scampering feet caught his ear, and, turning his head, he saw a dozen mice or more running over the floor, and after that two big rats stole softly across the old rag rug in front of the fireplace. With a leap, Puss landed close to the rats, and with his right paw, laid hold of the nearest, and with his left paw caught the other. "Squeak, squeak! Oh, let us go!" they cried.