But though the mice outside, and the sparrows and the pigeons and the two barn-door fowls, waited and waited, no Miss Patty Grey-Fur came darting out to snatch the nice titbit. Her door remained firmly closed, and by and by the birds flew away, and Miss Patty Grey-Fur and her three guests curled themselves up in a warm corner and went to sleep.
But though the birds had flown away and the two fowls had gone to roost, the five mice who had climbed up on to the roof did not dare to go down into the yard again. For the big mouse had told Rags, that if he would wait at the bottom of the pipe he would throw down fat Miss Patty Grey-Fur to him; and so Rags had left his warm kennel, and had sat down in the snow beside the water-pipe, waiting for Miss Patty Grey-Fur to fall down into his mouth.
When the time passed and she did not come he grew very angry, and as in the bright moonlight he could see the five mice sitting up in the gutter that ran round the roof, he made up his mind to wait until they came down, and to eat them instead of Miss Patty Grey-Fur.
So, as the five mice could see him waiting down below, and could guess very well why he was waiting, it was no wonder that they did not dare to go down into the yard. And they passed a very cold and very unhappy night in the gutter.
In the morning Rags called to his friend the cat, who had just come out of the cottage, and showed her where the five mice were sitting in a row. Puss said that while two or three of them would make a very dainty breakfast for her she would throw the others down to him. Then she began to climb up the water-pipe.
The five mice were very much frightened indeed, and they knocked at Miss Patty Grey-Fur's door and begged her to let them in before the cat caught them.
Whether Miss Patty Grey-Fur would have forgiven them and let them in will never be known, for she was sleeping so soundly that she did not hear them tapping.
But Fuzz, who had been awake for some time, heard the noise they were making outside, and he opened the door and let them in. And just in time too, for as the tail of the fifth mouse whisked into the hole the cat came round the corner.