Buz-z-z-z! whir-r-r! He was back in the wheat-stack once more, listening to the dull humming of ten thousand bluebottles. From without came the sound of heavy tramping feet, whirring wheels, rough, human voices. The wheaten mass rocked and vibrated above his head: half the runs were choked, and he, with twenty more of his kind, sat cowering in a corner of the foundations. Nearer and nearer came the voices, for the thrashing had commenced at sunrise, and now, as evening approached, three-parts of the stack were gone. Only once had he ventured to the edge of his shelter and looked out. A pair of grinning jaws crashed against the outlet, and snapped within a hair's-breadth of his nose. It was his first sight of a terrier, and he realized that to break cover was certain death. Death, indeed, was very busy outside. Every minute a dog's yelp, the shout of its master, and the dull thud of a bludgeon, told plainly enough the tale of some unhappy rodent's dash for freedom. And so the sun went down blood-red. It was midnight, however, before the remnant gathered themselves together, and agreed on flight. The trek was headed by an old brown rat. Of the dozen that survived it, he was the only mouse. * * * * * Better, after all, to have never finished the journey, and, yet, why should he complain? He had lived longer than most, and had had his supreme moments. * * * * * "'The mouse behind the mouldering wainscot shriek'd.'" He had been dozing behind the wainscot in the dining-room, and the squeak of irritation had been due to a passing spider. The apt quotation reached him through the panel. "_Squeaked_, surely?" The correction came in a soft, woman's voice. "No, _shrieked_; I am certain of it." "Squeaked, I think; a mouse doesn't shriek." [Illustration: HE RUSHED OFF TO TELL HER BEFORE HE SHOULD FORGET IT.] "Ah, but this mouse had a poetic licence." "Look it up." "I will." The book was taken from within two inches of where he sat. "'Shrieked' it is." It amused him vastly, for he had never shrieked in his life. "Do you like mice?" It was the first voice speaking again. "Hate them--smelly little things." [Illustration: SHE WAS A VERITABLE QUEEN AMONG MICE.] "Do you remember that thing of Suckling's?-- "'Her feet beneath her petticoat, Like little mice, ran in and out, As if they feared the light.' "Pretty, rather, I think." "What's pretty?" "Oh, I don't know--your feet, I suppose." [Illustration: HE HAD FOUGHT FIVE SUITORS TO WIN HER.] He felt disappointed. Surely it was the feet that profited by the comparison. Still, he knew that the whole conversation would amuse his wife, and rushed off to tell her before he should forget it.