It wasn't deliberate. It couldn't have been, because the Professor didn't know about Klarloth's warning to Mitkey about carelessness with electricity--"Der new molecular rearrangement of your brain center--it iss unstable, und--" And the Professor was still back in the lighted room when Mitkey ran into the room where Minnie was in her barless cage. She was asleep, and the sight of her--Memory of his earlier days came back like a flash and suddenly Mitkey knew how lonesome he had been. "Minnie!" he called, forgetting that she could not understand. And stepped up on the board where she lay. "Squeak!" The mild electrical current between the two strips of tinfoil got him. There was silence for a while. Then: "Mitkey," called the Herr Professor. "Come on back und ve vill discuss this--" He stepped through the doorway and saw them, there in the gray light of dawn, two small gray mice cuddled happily together. He couldn't tell which was which, because Mitkey's teeth had torn off the red and yellow garments which had suddenly been strange, confining and obnoxious things. "Vot on earth?" asked Professor Oberburger. Then he remembered the current, and guessed. "Mitkey! Can you no longer talk? Iss der--" Silence. Then the Professor smiled. "Mitkey," he said, "my little star-mouse. I think you are more happier now." [Illustration: "GOOTBYE, MITKEY"] He watched them a moment, fondly, then reached down and flipped the switch that broke the electrical barrier. Of course they didn't know they were free, but when the Professor picked them up and placed them carefully on the floor, one ran immediately for the hole in the wall. The other followed, but turned around and looked back--still a trace of puzzlement in the little black eyes, a puzzlement that faded. "Gootbye, Mitkey. You vill be happier this vay. Und there vill always be cheese." "Squeak," said the little gray mouse, and it popped into the hole. "Gootbye--" it might, or might not, have meant. * * * * * [Transcriber's Note: Section heads for Sections I to IV are missing] End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Star Mouse, by Fredric Brown