"Very true," I would reply to myself, "but I want a turn in the air. I'll just step down as far as the saddle-room once more, and make myself finally comfortable by looking behind the old barrel. I don't think I went quite round it."
There is no delusion so strong when it besets you, or so complete a failure in its results—as the hope of getting relief from an infatuation by indulging it once more. It grows worse every time.
One day I was stealing away as usual, when I caught my master's eye with a peculiar expression in it. He was gnawing his moustaches too. I am very fond of him, and I ran back to the chair and looked up and mewed, for I wanted to know what was the matter.
"You're a curious cat, Toots," said he; "but I suppose you're only like the rest of the world. I did think you did care a little bit for me. It's only the cream, is it, old fellow? As a companion, you prefer Terence? Eh? Well, off with you!"
But I need hardly say that I would not leave him. It was no want of love for him that led me to the saddle-room. I was not base enough to forget that he had been my friend in need, even if he had been less amiable to me since. All that evening I lay on his breast and slept. But I dreamt of the mouse!
The next morning he went out riding.
"He will not miss me now," thought I. "I will devote the morning to hunting through that wretched room inch by inch, for the last time. It will satisfy me that the mouse is not there, and it really is a duty to try and convince myself of this, that I may be cured of an infatuation which causes annoyance to so excellent a master."
I hurried off as rapidly as befitted the vigour of the resolution, and when I got into the saddle-room I saw the mouse. And when the mouse saw me he fled like the wind.
I confess that I should have lost him then, but that a hole on which he had reckoned was stopped up, and he had to turn.
What a chase it was! Never did I meet his equal for audacity and fleetness. But I knew the holes as well as he did, and cut him off at every one. Round and round we went—behind the barrel, over the corn-chest, and then he made for the middle of the room.