"Me frighten him away! Why he knows me ever so much better than you girls," said Fritz.
"He just doesn't then," said Denny with triumph, "for here he is safe in my apron."
But she had hardly said the words when she gave a little scream. "He's off again, oh quick, Baby, quick, catch him."
How Baby did it, I can't tell. His hands seemed too small to catch anything, even a dormouse. But catch the truant he did, and very proud Baby looked when he held up his two little fists, which he had made into a "mouse-trap" really, for the occasion, with Peepy-Snoozle's "coxy" little head and bright beady eyes poking out at the top.
"Oh look, look, Baby's made Peepy-Snoozle into 'the parson in the pulpit that couldn't say his prayers,'" cried Denny, dancing about.
"All the same, he'd better go back into his cage," said Fritz, who had a right to be heard, as he was the master and owner of the dormice. "Come along, Baby, poke him in."
Baby was busy kissing and petting Peepy-Snoozle by this time, for, though he did not approve of much of that sort of thing for himself, he was very fond of petting little animals, who were not little boys. And to tell the truth, it was not often he got a chance of petting his big brother's dormice. It was quite pretty to see the way he kissed Peepy-Snoozle's soft brown head, especially his nose, stroking it gently against his own smooth cheeks and chattering to the little creature.
"Dear little darling. Sweet little denkle darling," he said. "Him would like to have a house all full of Peepy-'noozles, zem is so sweet and soft."
"Wouldn't you like a coat made of their skins?" said Denny. "Think how soft that would be."