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Without once turning his back he went towards the wood that was filled with his enemies, the birds. The cats, when they saw their petitions were no use, went everyone back to the house where he or she stayed. Each one sat before a mouse-hole and pretended to be watching. But though mice stirred all round them the cats of Ireland never turned a head that night.
So the three wise cocks had to go forth on a second voyage of discovery, in order to try and find a remedy against the intruders. "They flew on for a night and a day without any result; but towards morning, on the second day, they alighted to rest in a thick wood, and there, in one of the forest glades, just as the sun was rising, they saw a red-coated animal watching a mouse-hole.
They routed out queer nests of broken curiosities, disturbed old dusty dens of rubbish, peeped behind every row of books; but made no discovery worth mentioning, except the left leg of Annie's last doll, the stuffing of Johnnie's ball, the tiger out of George's Noah's ark, and the first sheet of Sam's Latin Grammar, all stuffed together into a mouse-hole in the skirting.
"Now this raised in me an interest for the prisoner," continued the little mouse, "and I watched my opportunity, and slipped into his apartment, for there is a mouse-hole to be found behind every closed door. The prisoner looked pale; he had a great beard and large, sparkling eyes. There was a lamp burning, but the walls were so black that they only looked the blacker for it.
Whenever I stirred she stopped her chattering and leaned toward me, and watched me like a cat over a mouse-hole. I wondered how I could have considered her an agreeable travelling companion. I thought I would have preferred to be locked in with a lunatic.
He went into every house and whispered a word to every cat that was there, and whether the cat was watching a mouse-hole, or chasing crickets, or playing with kittens, when he or she heard that word they sat up and considered.
Soon the hull of the vessel came into view; and with a rattle of hawse-chains, her anchors were let fall, and she swung to beneath the protecting guns of the fort. It was clear that she was going to wait there until a dark or foggy night gave her a good chance to slip past the gunboat that watched the river's mouth as a cat watches the mouth of a mouse-hole.
The little bird without a name, however, sought out a mouse-hole, slipped down into it, and cried out of it with his small voice, "I am King! I am King!" "Thou our King!" cried the birds still more angrily. "Dost thou think thy cunning shall prevail?" They determined to keep him a prisoner in the hole and starve him out.
They journeyed on till it began to be dusky, and then the little man said, 'Let me get down, I'm tired. So the man took off his hat, and put him down on a clod of earth, in a ploughed field by the side of the road. But Tom ran about amongst the furrows, and at last slipped into an old mouse-hole.
"And who makes them suffer with the loss of an eye?" said the woman. "One whose reign is nearly over now," said Quick-to-Grab. "But tell me where you saw His Majesty?" "No," said the man. "No," said the woman, "for we don't like your impertinence. Back with you to the hearthstone, and watch the mouse-hole for us." Quick-to-Grab walked straight out of the door.
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