DUN'S THE MOUSE
Stn,—Having much enjoyed Mr. Hotson's article last week, I should like to put forward an alternative theory.
The old phrase " Mum as a mouse " is well known. Shakespeare, I suggest, with a view to elaborating the puns in this passage, has altered the word " Mum" by an early use of near-rhyming slang to Dun. The meaning of the expression would then be, " If you keep it to yourself, or Mum's the word as the Constable says, we will draw you from the mire." Further, the word " Mouse " in all the examples cited is used as a vocative, and I wonder if there is any context in which it is used other- wise. Incidentally, the word is in current use in my family in the sense referred to by Mr. Hotson.
I believe that all the plays quoted by Mr. Hotson as containing the expression were published after " Romeo and Juliet," and it seems probable that this phrase, like so many others, enjoyed a few years of popularity and was then forgotten.—Yours truly, E. R BURDER. Marling, Wadhurst, Sussex.
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