"Toots, you've deserted me," said my young mistress. "I'm quite jealous," she added. "Toots, you brute!" cried the gentleman, seizing me in both hands. "Where's your good taste, and your gratitude? Go to your mistress, sir," and he threw me into her lap. But I sprang back to his shoulder with one leap. "It's really most extraordinary," said one lady. "And Toots never goes to strangers as a rule," added my mistress. Everybody is proud of being _exceptionally_ favoured. It was this last stroke, I am convinced, that rubbed him the right way. A gratified blandness pervaded his countenance. He made no further attempts to dislodge me, and I settled myself into the angles of his shoulder and affected to go to sleep. "What are you going to do with him?" he asked, crossing one long leg over the other with a convulsive abruptness very trying to my balance, and to the strength of the arm-chair. Both the ladies began to mew. They were _so_ sorry to leave me behind, but it was _quite_ impossible to take me. They couldn't bear to think of my being unhappy, and didn't know where in the world to find me a home. "I wish _you_ would take him!" said my mistress. I listened breathlessly for the gentleman's reply. "Pets are not in the least in my line," he said. "I am a bachelor, you know, of very tidy habits. I dislike trouble, and have a rooted objection to encumbrances." "We hear you have a pet mouse, though," said my mistress. He laughed awkwardly. "My dear young lady, I never said that my practice always squared with my principles. Helpless and troublesome creatures have sometimes an insinuating way with them, which forms an additional reason for avoiding them, especially if one is weak-minded. And----" "And you _have_ a pet mouse?" He sat suddenly upright with another jerk, which nearly shot me into the fire-place, and said, "I'll tell you about it, for upon my word I wish you could see the little beggar. It was one afternoon when I came in from riding, that I found a mouse sitting on the fender. I could only see his back, with the tail twitching, and I noticed that a piece had been bitten out of his left ear. The little wretch must have heard me quite well, but he sat on as if the place belonged to him.