A great: rat trap with its inviting piece of cheese stood under a bed ina big bedroom, The occupants of the room—two little girls—examined this trap every night and morning, and whenever they were at home from school during the day they occasionally changed the cheese, or Consted the stale bit by their bedroom tire ut night,—nnd indand did everything in their power to catch a supposed rat which had devoured the classical wax nose of Jenny's French doll. © For you see," aid Alice, the elder, by the way, Caroline's nose is gnawed, there is no doubt about it, that it isa ent Jenny agreed, the always did agree with whatever Alice anid; she observed the face of the noseless doll and wondered why Alice sermed so pierised at the fact, Alice, ever, whose object in life was to experi men was delighted at the iden of conxing a rat trap she lid long observed in the kitchen out of Conk, and setting it under the head of her bed far away xs possible from where Jenny's doll generally reclined in ite cradle, She Tocked upon that ina mary Tat as an injury to herself; she talked and thought about it, so much that Jenny began to regard it as x human being, and when she and Alice arrived at school inthe morning, they were always grooved with the aame question: Has the rat came?" And A-ice generally replied in the most important way: Not when we und Jeff; most annoying, isn't it?
But still the rat was remiss in his visits and insisted that. the sisters should enjoy ion rather than surprise, At the tragedy wus going wu conce ing that vat tr Jenny also po a ting Mongolian kitten, not much larger than Alice's inginary rat—it rejoiced in the name of Jemime and had but one vice, it was the greediest Jittle kitten in all England, The "mel! of that inviting piece of cheese almost drove her frantic; she would sit for hours watching it inside the trap—thereby keeping away any rat likely to be attracted by it, She would paw the sir in her endeavour to get at the ting end of cheese she could just perceive sticking out on the hook, She would push the trap round and round and then sit down and lick her tips longingly. But one day Jemima was suddenly seized with an idea. She all at once perevived that to enter the trap wxs the only mens ing possession of that exquisite cheese; she gave n little delighted mew and with one bound wade for the trap door, performing the manceuvre almost as well as the rit himself could have done. Click went the door, but Jemima minded it not, she opened her wicked little mouth and devoured the cheese greedily, At the same time a little noise made her look-up, and there outside her cage stood a great rat. He was laughing
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.