This happy family party delighted King Bubi. *Adelaide and Elvira made tea and poured out some into lovely wee cups made out of the skins of white beans. *Then they had a little music. Adelaide sang Desdemona’s song, ‘O Willow Willow,’ in a way which much
pleased the King, and Elvira recited about a little mouse who was ill of fever, and a naughty kitten who wanted to pounce on it. After this Adolphus came in from the Jockey Club where, to the sorrow of his father and mother, he wasted all his time playing cards with the mice from the foreign embassies.
Perez the Mouse stopped at some crossway
King Bubi would willingly have stayed longer, but Perez, who had slipped away, came back with his satchel on his back and said it was time to start. *So the King said goodbye very politely, and Mrs. Mouse gave him a kiss on each cheek in her homely way. *
Adelaide put out a paw in a lackadaisical
fashion, and Elvira shook hands like a pump handle, while Miss Stilton made him a beautiful cheese of a curtsey, and then stared at him through her eyeglass until he was out of sight. *Adolphus, too, was very gushing, and conducted him as far as the lid of the tin, and offered to introduce him at the Polo Club, for which the King thanked him very much, thinking all the time that, though he might be a very smart young mouse, he was rather a bore.
