If this story falls into the paws of any young cat who wishes to avoid the mortifications which have embittered my favoured existence, let me warn him to remember that a creature who has lived on friendly terms with human beings cannot be judged by common rules. Many a mouse's eye as bright as this one had I seen, but hitherto never one that did not paralyze before my own. He looked at me--I looked at him. His tail jerked--mine responded. Our whiskers twitched--joy filled my brain to intoxication--I crept--I crouched--I sprang-- He was not spell-bound--he did not even run away. With a cool twinkle of that hateful eye, and one twitch of the ragged ear, he just overbalanced the silver sugar-pot and dropped to the ground, the basin and sugar falling on the top of him with a crash which made me start against my will. I think that start just baulked the lightning flash of my second leap, and he was gone--absolutely gone. To add insult to injury, my master ran in from his bedroom and shouted--"Stealing, Toots? confound you, you've knocked down my sugar-pot," and threw both his hair-brushes at me. _I_ steal?--and, worse still, _I_ knock down anything, who have walked among three dozen wine-glasses, on a shelf in the butler's pantry, without making them jingle! But I must be calm, for there is more to tell. The mouse never returned. It was something, but it was not enough. My pride had been deeply hurt, and it demanded revenge. At last I felt it almost a grievance that I _did_ reign supreme in the Captain's quarters, that the mouse did not come back--and let me catch him. Besides our in-door man, my master had an Irish groom, and the groom had a place (something between a saddle-room and a scullery) where _he_ said he "kept what the master required," but where, the master said, Terence kept what was not wanted, and lost what was. There certainly were, to my knowledge, fifteen empty Day and Martin's blacking-bottles in one corner, for I used occasionally to walk over them to keep my feet in practice, and it was in this room that Terence last had conscious possession of the hunting-breeches which were never seen after the Captain's birthday, when Terence threw the clothes-brush after me, because I would not drink the master's health in whisky, and had to take the cleanest of the shoe brushes to his own coat, which was dusty from lying in the corn-chest. But he was a good-natured creature, and now and then, for a change, I followed him into the saddle-room. I am thankful to say I have never caught mice except for amusement, and a cat of daintier tastes does not exist. But one has inherited instincts--and the musty, fusty, mousey smell of the room did excite me a little. Besides, I practised my steps among the blacking-bottles.