The Green Mouse

The Green Mouse, by Robert W.
Chambers,

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Chambers, Illustrated by Edmund Frederick
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Title: The Green Mouse
Author: Robert W. Chambers
Release Date: December 12, 2003 [eBook #10441]
Language: English
Character set encoding: iso-8859-1
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MOUSE***
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[Illustration]

[Illustration: "She almost wished some fisherman might come into
view."]

THE GREEN MOUSE
By
ROBERT W. CHAMBERS
ILLUSTRATED IN COLOR BY
EDMUND FREDERICK
1910
TO
MY FRIEND
JOHN CORBIN
Folly and Wisdom, Heavenly twins, Sons of the god Imagination, Heirs
of the Virtues--which were Sins Till Transcendental Contemplation
Transmogrified their outer skins-- Friend, do you follow me? For I
Have lost myself, I don't know why.
Resuming, then, this erudite And decorative Dedication,-- Accept it,
John, with all your might In Cinquecentic resignation. You may not
understand it, quite, But if you've followed me all through, You've
done far more than I could do.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]

PREFACE

To the literary, literal, and scientific mind purposeless fiction is
abhorrent. Fortunately we all are literally and scientifically inclined; the
doom of purposeless fiction is sounded; and it is a great comfort to
believe that, in the near future, only literary and scientific works
suitable for man, woman, child, and suffragette, are to adorn the
lingerie-laden counters in our great department shops.
It is, then, with animation and confidence that the author politely offers
to a regenerated nation this modern, moral, literary, and highly
scientific work, thinly but ineffectually disguised as fiction, in
deference to the prejudices of a few old-fashioned story-readers who
still survive among us.
R. W. C.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]

CONTENTS
I. An Idyl of the Idle
II. The Idler
III. The Green Mouse
IV. An Ideal Idol
V. Sacharissa
VI. In Wrong
VII. The Invisible Wire
VIII. "In Heaven and Earth"
IX. A Cross-town Car

X. The Lid Off
XI. Betty
XII. Sybilla
XIII. The Crown Prince
XIV. Gentlemen of the Press
XV. Drusilla
XVI. Flavilla
[Illustration]
[Illustration]

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
"She almost wished some fisherman might come into view"
"'Those squirrels are very tame,' she observed calmly"
"'Are you not terribly impatient?' she inquired"
"The lid of the basket tilted a little.... Then a plaintive voice said
'Meow-w!'"
"'I'm afraid,' he ventured, 'that I may require that table for cutting'"
"'Perhaps,' he said, 'I had better hold your pencil again'"
[Illustration]

I

AN IDYL OF THE IDYL
In Which a Young Man Arrives at His Last Ditch and a Young Girl
Jumps Over It
Utterly unequipped for anything except to ornament his environment,
the crash in Steel stunned him. Dazed but polite, he remained a passive
observer of the sale which followed and which apparently realized
sufficient to satisfy every creditor, but not enough for an income to
continue a harmlessly idle career which he had supposed was to
continue indefinitely.
He had never earned a penny; he had not the vaguest idea of how
people made money. To do something, however, was absolutely
necessary.
He wasted some time in finding out just how much aid he might expect
from his late father's friends, but when he understood the attitude of
society toward a knocked-out gentleman he wisely ceased to annoy
society, and turned to the business world.
Here he wasted some more time. Perhaps the time was not absolutely
wasted, for during that period he learned that he could use nobody who
could not use him; and as he appeared to be perfectly useless, except
for ornament, and as a business house is not a kindergarten, and
furthermore, as he had neither time nor money to attend any school
where anybody could teach him anything, it occurred to him to take a
day off for minute and thorough self-examination concerning his
qualifications and even his right to occupy a few feet of space upon the
earth's surface.
Four years at Harvard, two more in postgraduate courses, two more in
Europe to perfect himself in electrical engineering, and a year at home
attempting to invent a wireless apparatus for intercepting and
transmitting psychical waves had left him pitifully unfit for wage
earning.
There remained his accomplishments; but the market was overstocked

with assorted time-killers.
His last asset was a trivial though unusual talent--a natural manual
dexterity cultivated since childhood to amuse himself--something he
never took seriously. This, and a curious control over animals, had, as
the pleasant years flowed by, become an astonishing skill which