A very true and impressive proverb is that "A mouse may stir what a man cannot stay"--a very small commencement may lead to an incalculable ending; a momentary slip unarrested may hurl half-a-dozen mountaineers over a precipice; a little trickle of water unregarded may be the solvent that will melt away all barriers, and sweep all living things to destruction in the swirling torrent as it breaks its bonds. There is a note of caution in the picturesque statement, "I gave the mouse a hole, and she has become my heir." The Spanish, "Give me where I may sit down and I will make a place for myself to lie down" is like unto it, showing in each case that if we "Give an inch, they will take an ell," and that we may, too late, repent of our first assistance when it has led in the end to our effacement. The Chinese say, with quaint common-sense, "A mouse can drink no more than its fill from a river." Beyond a certain point that is soon reached all else is needless superfluity. The strained relations between the cat and the mouse form the subject of divers popular adages. How good is the Scottish, "Weel kens the mouse when the cat's oot o' the house," paralleled in our English version, "When the cat's away the mice will play," or in the French, "Les rats se promenent a l'aise la ou il n'y a point des chats," and there is a pleasant vein of truth and humour in the assertion that "Mice care not to play with kittens." In the "Order of Foles," a manuscript of about the year 1450, we find the graphic declaration that "It is a hardy mouse that is bold to breede in cattis eeris"; and Skelton writes, in 1520, "It is a wyly mouse that can build his dwellinge house within the cattes eare."[184:A] Heywood and other later writers also refer to this proverb in their various works. The query, "Who shall bell the cat?" may be called a fable abridged, for it contains the point of one. The mice held a consultation how to secure themselves from the too marked attentions of the cat, and someone suggested that it would be an excellent plan to hang a bell round her neck, so as to give warning of her approach. The idea was taken up warmly, but then the point arose--Who shall do it? "Quoth one mouse unto the rest, Which of us all dare be so stout To hang the bell cat's neck about: If here be any let him speake. Then all replide, We are too weake; The stoutest mouse and tallest rat Doe tremble at a grim-fac'd cat." The above is from "Diogenes Lanthorne," issued in the year 1607. Heywood writes: "Who shall ty the bell about the cat's necke low? Not I (quoth the mouse) for a thing that I know." To "smell a rat" is to have one's suspicions aroused as to something concealed, and is suggested by the eagerness of dog or cat to follow scent. The saying will be found in Ben Jonson's "Tale of a Tub," in Butler's "Hudibras," and elsewhere.