A tiny mouse recently solved the problem of getting an electric wire through a pipe 197 feet long at the Vinery Building (Norfolk, Va.). There were several bends in the pipe, and modern methods, such as blow-pipes, failed to produce results.

A mouse was caught and a thread tied to its leg. A tape was tied to the thread, and the wire to the tape. The mouse was given a start, and went through the pipe in a hurry. Liberty was its reward.—Philadelphia Record.

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Animal Traits—See [Peaceful Instinct of Simians].

ANIMALS, ABSURD FONDNESS FOR

A seamstress whom I know was sewing in the home of a wealthy woman in one of the aristocratic suburbs of Boston. She was there every day for nearly a week, when finally her patience became exhausted and she left the house never to return.

She said she could stand being fed on crackers and milk every day at the noon meal, but when she heard the mistress of the house at the telephone ordering half a chicken for her pet dogs she could withhold her wrath no longer.

Of course, the good woman of the house was sweetly unconscious of the absurd comparison between the dogs’ food and the food for the seamstress. Had she had any sense of the meanness of her conduct, she never would have telephoned that message within the hearing of the seamstress.

The truth of the matter was that her heart—as much as she had left of it—was all wrapt up in her pet dogs, and her interest in human beings had become as a matter of habit, simply a question of the amount of service they could render her. She is probably whining to-day about the seamstress who didn’t know her place and who was jealous of people who had means.—George W. Coleman, “Searchlights.”

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