and a bold-brimmed grey-felt hat with waving plumes. And in the man
beside her you would have recognised your servant. You would have
thought me in great luck, perhaps you would have envied me.
But--_esse, quam videri_!--I would I were as enviable as I looked.




MERCEDES


When I was a child some one gave me a family of white mice. I don't
remember how old I was, I think about ten or eleven; but I remember
very clearly the day I received them. It must have been a Thursday, a
half-holiday, for I had come home from school rather early in the
afternoon. Alexandre, dear old ruddy round-faced Alexandre, who opened
the door for me, smiled in a way that seemed to announce, 'There's a
surprise in store for you, sir.' Then my mother smiled too, a smile, I
thought, of peculiar promise and interest. After I had kissed her she
said, 'Come into the dining-room. There's something you will like.'
Perhaps I concluded it would be something to eat. Anyhow, all agog
with curiosity, I followed her into the dining--room--and Alexandre
followed _me_, anxious to take part in the rejoicing. In the window
stood a big cage, enclosing the family of white mice.

I remember it as a very big cage indeed; no doubt I should find it
shrunken to quite moderate dimensions if I could see it again. There
were three generations of mice in it: a fat old couple, the founders
of the race, dozing phlegmatically on their laurels in a corner; then
a dozen medium-sized, slender mice, trim and youthful-looking, rushing