Soon I began to look forward to my daily outing, and took great delight in exploring every corner of the room. I well recollect what a shock I got the first time I reached the window-sill. Outside was a great elm-tree, whose branches reached within a few yards of the window, and the sight of the green leaves waving gently in the early morning breeze roused in me strange longings. I made one jump, and striking full against the glass, fell back half stunned and terrified almost out of my wits at the strange transparent barrier. Jack picked me up at once, and placed me safe in the darkness and warmth under the bedclothes, where I had time to recover from my fright. Soon he took to letting me out at bedtime, and I had a grand scamper before the light was put out. The window-curtains were my favourite resort. They were so easy to climb, and had such splendid folds and crannies for hiding nuts in. I would race across the curtain-pole, rattling the rings as I went, down the other curtain, round the room full tilt, and finish up with a good hunt in all the corners for nuts which I had concealed the day before and forgotten all about. I rarely went back to my cage to sleep, though it was always open and ready for me. A fold in the window-curtain was my usual place of repose, and another pet perch was an old band-box on the top of the wardrobe. It was half full of tissue paper, which possessed a strange fascination for my young mind. I tore it all up fine with my sharp teeth, and made a most delicious nest with the bits. When the night was chilly I generally snuggled under Jack’s bedclothes, and always, first thing in the morning, so soon as daylight came, I would make for the bed, and working my way gently down between the sheets, curl up close against Jack’s toes. Sometimes he was so sleepy that he would not wake up and play when I wanted him to; then I would emerge on to the pillow and gently nibble the tip of his nose. This never failed. ‘Confound you, Nipper!’ (he always called me Nipper), he would mutter drowsily, and then make a lazy grab, which I always eluded with the greatest ease, and with two bounds would land on the end of the bedstead, and, perched there, scold him until he sat up and threw a sock at me. He was never rough, and never lost his temper with me, although I am sure that I was aggravating enough at times. It must have been trying when he pulled on his boots in a hurry and found a couple of nuts wedged tight in each toe. I do not think that a boy and a squirrel ever became better chums. We were simply devoted to one another. The only dull times for me were when Jack and Harry were busy with their tutor, during which hours I was usually in my box in the bowling-alley.