Pinkie Whiskers, did not know what to do, but he decided to keep very still. The waiter took his tray of food and went into the dining room. Pinkie Whiskers peeped out of the pocket and saw many tables with people about them.
Pinkie Whiskers’ head was still out of the pocket when the waiter went up to a table to serve a lady. She saw Pinkie Whiskers and screamed, “A mouse! a mouse!”
Now, Pinkie Whiskers knew that he was a rat and not a mouse, so at first he did not think that she meant him, but when all of the ladies jumped up from the table and started to run, Pinkie Whiskers jumped from the pocket and ran too.
He hid behind the leg of a big chair and did not move until he felt the ship stop and saw everyone going ashore. He started to go ashore too and as everyone had bundles and baggage, he picked up a small hand bag, an umbrella, a can and a cage filled with butterflies, grasshoppers and a lady-bug.
He had only gone a short way when the door of the cage flew open and the insects flew out.
“I never had so much trouble in all my life,” complained Pinkie Whiskers.
He ran after them and caught as many as he could and put them back into the cage for he wanted to take them home as presents to his dear ones.
CHAPTER XIII
PINKIE WHISKERS found it very hard to travel over the country road with all of his baggage. He caught his feet in the cage and fell over it several times.
He did not know the way home and he had to ask every little wild creature that he met where the cheese factory was.