I PLAYED WITH SHAVINGS FOR ABOUT AN HOUR.
I had never seen a mouse in my life.
Presently I saw what I should have said were two bright boot-buttons set very near together, side by side, though, not one on top of the other as they would be all down a boot. That roused my suspicions, and I made a wild dash into the heap of shavings whence they peeped out. I can say no more than this to account for what I did. I felt horrid afterwards, not to say rather ill, but at the time I felt nothing but a desire to get that mouse (for, of course, it was a mouse), and lay it at the feet of Auntie May, or, better still, throw it in Mrs. Gilmour's face. I should have died if I had not got it, and I did get it. It was a mouse, although I hardly looked. I just put my paws, which are very broad and long, on it and it lay quite still beneath them and didn't move a bit.
I did not know what in the world to do with it now that I had got it safe. I knew that decency dictated that I should eat it, but I had not the slightest idea where to begin, and I suppose, while I was thinking, I let my paws rest on it rather more lightly, and it suddenly got up and walked away!
I could not stand such an arrant piece of cheek as that, so I got it back, with very little trouble, for it had not gone far. In a few moments I loosened my paws again on purpose to see what it would do. Sure enough it walked away again! It began to be a sort of game we were playing, and my blood was up.
It was really rather a cheeky mouse, I think, and enjoyed the game as much as I did. Presently I varied the fun a little and tossed it up and down two or three times in the air, catching it again in my paws. This went on a long time, and I got quite excited, till the last time it came down it lay quite still, and though I waited for it to walk away again as usual it did not make the slightest attempt to get up. I believe it was dead, really and truly, not pretending, but there wasn't a bruise on its body or a hole in its skin anywhere, for I looked carefully. I got bored with it and caught another. That one I nipped in catching, I suppose, for it died at once. I tried to eat it, but no, I find I don't care for mouse-flesh.
Before Tom and Beatrice came for me I had laid another brown body beside the other two, and Tom said when he saw them:
'One to May! Game little cat! Three in two hours!'
Auntie May hadn't felt able to come, but Beatrice told her all about it.