THE GOLD MOUSETRAP

Hutt News, Volume 2, Issue 49, 15 May 1930, Page 4

THE GOLD MOUSETRAP

"Who's been nibbling ... ray cheese?"- cried the King, when his servants handed him a silver tray with little pieces of nibbly cheese, piled on it.

The servants trembled so much that a piece of nibbly cheese fell on to. the floor, and before they could pick it tip, it had gone! "You Majesty, I'm afraid there must be nice about,'! whispered the head servant.

"Mice!" shrieked the King, jumping on his gold throne and shaking his robes. ''I must have a trap set at once."

.„■• "Tour Majesty, there is not such a thing as a mouse-trap in the whole of the royal palace," said one of the servants.

"Then make one, and make it of.. fine" gold,'' commanded the King.

And the next night when Mr and Mrs Mouse came pattering softly-across the big shining floor oi the royal dining room they suddenly sat up on their tiny hind kgs and gasped. . ""Oh," do look, Mr Mouse!" cried Mrs- Mouse, "here's a little gold house and a lovely little joint of cheese'-.hanging up inside it, on v a gold hook with a diamond glittering on the end of it." Mr. Mouse looked very hard at the glittering gold trap with the .sparkling diamond lighting up the joint of cheese. " How would you like to live in a gold house, Mrs Mouse?" he whispered excitedly*. Mrs Mouse sighed. <'I should—and I shouldn't, she said. "If I lived in a gold house I might get very proud, and then all oar little friends and neighbours in the cornfield would not like me any more." . "Perhaps not," said Mr, Mouse, "but think how they would envy you." ■■•■'-'.'■-• ■•■■-•• 1 , "I'd rather tliey loved me, said Mrs Mouse, in her soft little squeaky voice. ; . Then she took Mr. Mouse by the arm. "Come away, my clear," she whispered, "before we are tempted too much. After all, the corn makes a lovely roof of gold above us, and as for that diamond meat hook, why we can see diamonds every morning hanging on the -golden ears of col-n." "Yes, 1 suppose we can," sighed Mr. Mouse; "but it looks 'a very nice piece of cheese, and it's all hung up read to eat.''

'"'Never mind," said Mrs: Mouse, "we can get nice, little nibbly bits that the King drops from "his table."

So Mrs- Mouse had her way, and they went" back to the cornfiled and their friends.