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Over the quaint old Venetian glass dangled Vixen's first trophy, the fox's brush, tied with a scarlet ribbon. There were no birds, or squirrels, or dormice, for Vixen was too fond of the animal creation to shut her favourites up in cages; but there was a black bearskin spread in a corner for Argus to lie upon.
As for George he stormed and clamoured at the top of his voice. "Vile dwellers in the earth, moles, badgers, dormice, ferrets, and water-rats, open the door and I'll cut off all your ears." But hardly had he uttered these words when the bronze door of the castle slowly opened of itself, for no one could be seen pushing back its enormous wings.
They liked this, and played hard till bedtime, when most of them turned in and slept like dormice. Dan, however, had a plan in his head, and when he and Nat were alone, he unfolded it. "Look here!" he said, taking from under his bed a bottle, a cigar, and a pack of cards, "I'm going to have some fun, and do as I used to with the fellows in town.
"Indeed, I should think not," replied Monte Cristo; "dormice are bad neighbors for us who do not eat them preserved, as the Romans did." "What? Did the Romans eat them?" said the gardener "ate dormice?" "I have read so in Petronius," said the count. "Really?
The cochlearium has a good stock of snails and mussels; and the little dormice are growing into fine condition for an approaching Imperial banquet. Columella, Lib. Villicus reports the clip of the Tarentine sheep unusually fine, and free from burrs.
That I might not be a guest entirely useless, I took upon myself the direction of the garden and the inspection of the conduct of the gardener. Everything went on well until the fruit season, but as this became ripe, I observed that it disappeared without knowing in what manner it was disposed of. The gardener assured me it was the dormice which eat it all.
"Did you notice, Lady Mary, how the dormice held their food?" "Yes, they sat up, and held it in their fore-paws, which looked just like tiny hands." "There are many animals whose fore-feet resemble hands, and these, generally, convey their food to their mouths among these are the squirrel and dormice. They are good climbers and diggers.
"Certainly," agreed Merula, "for I have seen there great flocks of geese, chickens, pigeons, cranes and pea-cocks: also dormice, fish, wild boars and other such game. As Axius seemed astonished, I asked him: "Surely you know the estate of my aunt in the Sabine country which is at the twenty-fourth mile stone from Rome on the via Salaria."
And now the slaves hurried hither and thither, bearing costly dishes with elaborately dressed viands: dormice strewed with honey and poppy seeds; beccaficoes surrounded by yolks of eggs, seasoned with pepper and made to resemble peafowls' eggs in a nest whereon the stuffed bird was sitting; fish floating in rich gravies that spouted from the mouths of four tritons at the corners of the dish; crammed fowls, hares fitted with wings to resemble Pegasus, thrushes in pastry stuffed with raisins and nuts, oysters, scallops, snails on silver gridirons, boar stuffed with fieldfares, with baskets of figs and dates hanging from his tusks, sweetmeats, cold tarts with Spanish honey these and a hundred other dishes, strange or costly, followed each other in quick succession, and, all the while, the carvers flourished their knives in time with music, now of instruments, again of choruses of boys and girls.
"What have you discovered?" asked Morrel. "I have just discovered how a gardener may get rid of the dormice that eat his peaches." Ghosts.
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