her little heart beat so violently as to lift her off her feet and bump
her head against the top of our domestic hole. The cat that deprived my
sister of so large a percentage of her vertebral colophon was the same
brindled ogress that nowadays steals ever and anon into this room,
crouches treacherously behind the sofa, and feigns to be asleep, hoping,
forsooth, that some of us, heedless of her hated presence, will venture
within reach of her diabolical claws. So enraged was this ferocious
monster at the escape of my sister that she ground her fangs viciously
together, and vowed to take no pleasure in life until she held in her
devouring jaws the innocent little mouse which belonged to the mangled bit
of tail she even then clutched in her remorseless claws."

"Yes," said the old clock, "now that you recall the incident, I recollect
it well. I was here then, in this very corner, and I remember that I
laughed at the cat and chided her for her awkwardness. My reproaches
irritated her; she told me that a clock's duty was to run itself down,
_not_ to be depreciating the merits of others! Yes, I recall the
time; that cat's tongue is fully as sharp as her claws."

"Be that as it may," said the little mauve mouse, "it is a matter of
history, and therefore beyond dispute, that from that very moment the cat
pined for Squeaknibble's life; it seemed as if that one little two-inch
taste of Squeaknibble's tail had filled the cat with a consuming passion,
or appetite, for the rest of Squeaknibble. So the cat waited and watched
and hunted and schemed and devised and did everything possible for a
cat--a cruel cat--to do in order to gain her murderous ends. One
night--one fatal Christmas eve--our mother had undressed the children for
bed, and was urging upon them to go to sleep earlier than usual, since she
fully expected that Santa Claus would bring each of them something very
palatable and nice before morning. Thereupon the little dears whisked