REINFORCEMENTS P
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.") Sin,—A mouse was seen in our bedroom one evening. The most mobile and courageous inmates of the house were hastily summoned, armed with suitable weapons, and the pursuit began. In vain blows were aimed at. the small, wily creature; it dodged, it fled, it climbed, it hid, while the pur- suers panted and wiped the perspiration from their brows. Some spectators, safely perched upon chairs, with their skirts tightly held round them, criticised our tactics, and were lavish of advice. At last one small boy, so bright that he had been sent to school all the way to Ipswich, suggested: "Try the dog!" 'Mac' in answer to a whistle came bounding upstairs, soon scented sport, and eagerly joined in the chase. Still the mouse defied us; 'Mac' followed it into corners too small for us but the mouse found other corners too small for him, and sometimes, as if taunting us, darted straight across the room under our very noses. We were beginning to despair of ever catching it, when it suddenly vanished, and no amount of sniffing from 'Mac' nor poking under furniture could discover it; so we sat down to our breath and regain wonder what had become of our enemy. At length one wearY warrior in petticoats got up to go, and as she left her chair something dropped to the ground. It was the dead mouse. It had, thinking itself very cute, no doubt, run up her skirt, and been crushed by dint of sheer weight. The dog's sagacity and smartness had been baffied.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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