166 SOUP ON A SAUSAGE-PEG.

IV.
What the fourth Mouse, who spoke before the third, had to tell.

“JT betook myself immediately to the largest town,” she said;
“the name has escaped me—I have a bad memory for names.
From the railway I was carried, with some confiscated goods, to
the council-house, and when I arrived there, I ran into the dwel-
ling of the gaoler. The gaoler was talking of his prisoners, and
especially of one, who had spoken unconsidered words. These
words had given rise to others, and these latter had been written
down and recorded.

“The whole thing is soup on a sausage-peg,’ said the gaoler;
‘but the soup may cost him his neck,’

“ Now, this gave me an interest in the prisoner,” continued the
Mouse, “and I watched my opportunity and slipped into his
prison—for there ’s a mouse-hole to be found behind every locked
door. The prisoner looked pale, and had a great beard and
bright sparkling eyes. The lamp flickered and smoked, but the
walls were so accustomed to that, that they grew none the blacker
for it. The prisoner scratched pictures and verses in white upon
the black ground, but I did not read them. I think he found it
tedious, and I was a welcome guest. He lured me with bread-
crumbs, with whistling, and with friendly words: he was glad to
see me, and gradually I got to trust him, and we became good
friends, He let me run over his hand, his arm, and into his
sleeve ; he let me creep about in his beard, and called me his
little friend. I really got to love him, for these things are reci-
procal. I forgot my mission in the wide world, forgot my sausage-
peg; that I had placed in a crack in the floor—it’s lying there
still. I wished to stay where I was, for if 1 went away the poor
prisoner would have no one at all, and that’s having too little, in
this world.. 7 stayed, but “e did not stay. He spoke to me
very mournfully the last time, gave me twice as much bread and
cheese as usual, and kissed his hand to me; then he went away,
and never came back. I don’t know his history.

“¢Soup on a sausage-peg!’ said the gaolor, to whom I now
went; but I should not have trusted him. He took me in his
hand, certainly, but he popped me into a cage,atreadmill. That’s
a horrible engine, in which you go round and round without get-
ting any farther; and people laugh at you into the bargain.

“The gaoler’s granddaughter was a charming little thing, with
a mass of curly hair that shone like gold, and such merry eyes,
and such a smiling mouth!

“*You poor little mouse,’ she said, as she peeped into my ugly
cage; and she drew out the iron rod, and forth I jumped to the
window-board, and from thence to the roof spout. Free! free! I
thought only of that, and not of the goal of my journey.