Then pat, pat, pat, again in chase went Lou and Amy's shoes; flap, flap, flap, followed Uncle Leonard's slippers; and Mamma Wilson and Aunt Laura brought up the rear with an irregular run and walk. Right through the length of the whole second story, through the hallway, and from room to room they rushed, with such a clatter and whoop as had never before been heard in that house, merry as were its people.
Cattegat will now surely catch that ferocious rat in the last room, thought every one. But no; straight down the back stairs plunged the rat, and jump, jump, followed Cattegat, still several feet behind it. And at the bottom of the stairway, closed by a door, the race would have been doubtlessly won by Cattegat, but Peggy O'Conner, hearing such an unusual commotion overhead, came to the door to inquire its cause. As Peggy opened the door she heard several voices call: "Don't open that door; Cattegat's after a rat."
Bang! went the door—closed quickly, I assure you; but something flew past Peggy, and she only shut the door in Cattegat's face.
As that something, very much like a rat, flew past Peggy, and vanished out of the kitchen, a piece of soap that Katie, the other girl, threw with a very bad aim, went flying after it. But frightened Peggy, in dismay, raised her hands, backed awkwardly against a tub of blue water on the floor, and before she could recover her balance, splashed down into the water, which flew about like the spray of a great fountain.
As the whole party filed down the back stairs, Katie was trying amidst her merriment to help wringing-wet Peggy out of her queer bath, and all but Cattegat had something to laugh at.
Cattegat seemed very much disappointed because the rat had escaped, and went out in the yard, and hid himself under a rose-bush.
As for the rat, Lou is pretty certain that he sees it occasionally capering about the stable, very much unlike a common rat that has never had an adventure.
