REQUIESCAT
IN
PUSSIE
From that day onward she had lavished the whole affection of her broken heart upon little Squarky-woo. He was indeed a mouse of which any mother might have been proud. His coat was as brown as the Thames water at London Bridge, his eyes were as black as Maria, and his teeth were as sharp as needles and as white as ivory. Deep down in her heart Mammy-ana thought him perfect, but it must not be supposed from this that she in any way neglected her duties as a mother. She insisted on his getting up at twelve o'clock every night, and going into his hole at six o'clock every morning. He was never allowed to play with the other young mice, or to use any vulgar expressions, such as "Go to Felis!" or "You be trapped!" Above all, he was strictly forbidden, on any excuse whatever, to go near the kitchen in which his beloved father had met so dreadful a fate.
With the foolishness of youth, Squarky-woo chafed under this admirable discipline. Not that he ever complained to his mother—oh, dear, no! He loved her too much, and, besides, she would probably have beaten him. Of course, if she had done so, it would only have been for his own good; but Squarky-woo, being modest by nature, felt that he was quite good enough. So he kept his thoughts to himself, and did what he was told, and Mammy-ana frequently informed him that he was the best behaved and the most satisfactory little mouse in the whole of Berkeley Square. "This," she would add, "is rather due to your excellent upbringing than to any innate virtue that you yourself possess." And Squarky-woo, who had quite made up his mind to pay a visit to the kitchen on the first possible occasion, used to bow his head gracefully, as though recognising the truth of her remark, and then wink at himself in the looking-glass under the dining-room sideboard.
Though nothing can excuse such duplicity, especially in early life, Squarky-woo's conduct was not really quite so reprehensible as it appears at first sight. He suffered from temptations of which Mammy-ana was ignorant, for the other young mice had the most offensive habit of jeering at him whenever she was not present. "Yah!" they would cry, "Who's afraid of the cat? Look at little Stay-in-hole!" Then they would tell him wonderful stories about the kitchen, how the floor was strewn with crumbs, and how exciting it was to creep in quietly and pick them up, while the great, ugly brute of a cat nodded away sleepily in front of the fire. And Squarky-woo would grind his teeth with impotent fury, and swear to himself that, come what might, nothing should stop him from sharing in their adventures.
And so, one evening, when Mammy-ana had gone across the square to pay a visit of congratulation (the cat at No. 4 having been rather severely bitten by a stray dog), Squarky-woo seized the opportunity of putting his long-cherished scheme into operation. He waited until twelve o'clock, when all the half-dressed people upstairs seemed to have gone to bed, and then, creeping softly out of his hole, made his way to the head of the kitchen stairs. His heart was beating furiously with excitement, and that strange, delicious ecstasy which, alas! so frequently accompanies a first departure from the paths of right flowed fiercely through his veins. He listened for a moment or two, scarcely daring to breathe, but the quivering of his own tail alone broke the silence.
Very cautiously he crept downstairs, until he reached the basement, where a small, blue jet of gas was flickering feebly in the draught. Squarky-woo knew from this that the servants had all retired into their holes. He paused for a moment outside the pantry door, until he heard the butler growling through his nose, which, according to Mammy-ana, was a sure sign that he had gone to sleep. Then, setting his teeth, he scuttled off down the passage in the direction of the kitchen.
To his intense surprise, the door was partly open; some careless scullery-maid had evidently forgotten her duty. For one instant he hesitated as the memory of his father's fate suddenly rushed into his mind. But the thought of what the other young mice would say swept away all caution, and, trembling with excitement, he crawled forward, and peeped round the corner into the forbidden chamber. In his wildest moments he had never imagined anything so exquisite. His heart almost stopped beating, and, in a hoarse whisper, he ejaculated to himself the single exclamation, "Crumbs!" The floor was literally strewn with them. Bread, toast, flour, bacon, potato—minute portions of all that made life sweet and radiant lay scattered there in boundless plenty. The dying firelight shone upon the silver covers on the walls, and threw a faint, harmonious glow over the entire banquet.
Tears of happiness gathered in Squarky-woo's eyes, and rolled gently down his nose. No wonder his father had risked everything in such a cause. Instead of a rash, indefinite shadow, Squarky-woo suddenly saw him in the guise of an heroic martyr, and a great thrill of family pride shot through his fluttering heart. He raised his head, and glanced savagely round the kitchen. Where was that infernal cat? She should pay bitterly for her deed of blood.
Fortunately, however, for Squarky-woo, the cat was otherwise engaged, and with the exception of a few black beetles, who eyed him with apathetic interest, he was in sole possession of the kitchen. Well! vengeance would keep, and the crumbs would not. There they lay in all their toothsome beauty. He crushed back his more noble sentiments, and flung himself upon the feast.
It was one of those rare occasions when the realization of a long-cherished scheme is even more enjoyable than imagination has already painted it, and so eagerly did Squarky-woo enter upon his task that for some moments he was totally oblivious of all other considerations. At length, however, when the first glow of gratified appetite was gradually cooling down, he began to realise that the whole apartment was permeated by a delicate perfume for which none of the fragments on the floor were directly responsible. He stopped eating and began to sniff the air with the rich satisfaction of a true connoisseur. "If that isn't Cheddar cheese," he murmured to himself, "I'm a Dutch-mouse!"