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Show FOR LITTLE FOLKS. MR. GREY AND MR. BROWN. The Reason Why They Don't Now Live In the Same House Explained. Mr. Thomas Grey was an old cat, who lived in a lonely little house at the turn of the road. Mr. Brown was a nimble little mouse, who lived in the basement without paying pay-ing any rent, and who got his meals by stealing from Mr. Grey's pantry when Mr. Grey was not at home. Ono day Mr. Grey came home sooner than Mr. Brown expected and almost caught him as he was making for the knothole which he called his "private entrance" to the basement Mr. Grey smacked his lips and stroked his mustache, mus-tache, for he dearly loved a fat and tender ten-der mouse. "Good morning," he said politely "Have you lunched?" "Oh, dear, no I" said Mr. Brown. "I have had nothing to eat these three days past, and my sides are so thin that I have to button my coat tight so that my ribs will stay together. " "Indeed!" said Mr. Grey in a disappointed disap-pointed tone, for a thin mouse is poor fare. "And how does that happen?" "Well, when a man has a wife and 6ix children, " said the mouse, "and has to feed them all, there is not much left for him. There is my wife now," he went on in a complaining voice, "just as fat as butter. You'd think she'd help forage, now, wouldn't you? Well, she wont She lets me do it all, and she must see the condition I am in. And each one of those boys is twice as big as I am, just from overfeeding. " Mr. Grey's eyes Bhona "I should like to see them. They must be handsome children," he said. "Would you?" said Mr. Brown. "Shall I go fetch them? They never stir a step unless I make them. " "Do so, Mr. Brown; by all means do bo. I shall be pleased and proud to meet all of your family all, Mr. Bivjvti, if you please," for the old cat thought, "Seven fat mice are better than one thin one any day. " So Mr. Brown popped down the knot hole, and Mr. Grey drew his chair up, all ready to pounce upon the fat mice. But he waited in vain. Then Mr. Brown, who had no wife nor a chick nor child in the world, but was a gray and good for nothing old bachelor, put a sign up in the basement: base-ment: "To Let Desirable rooms for a single gentleman," and went to live in a corn crib with some other bachelor mice like himself. Often in tho evening he would climb up and look in the window win-dow at the old cat, sitting patiently by the hole, waiting, waiting for the seven fat mica Then ho would laugh and laugh until he nearly tumbled off the window sill. Etheldred B. Barry in Buffalo News. |