The Green Mouse | Page 6

where it became no
mouse at all but a white butterfly that fluttered 'round and 'round,
alighting at last on the window curtain and hung there, opening and
closing its snowy wings.
"That's all very well," he reflected, gloomily, as, at a pass of his hand,
the air was filled with canary birds; "that's all very well, but suppose I
should slip up? What I need is to rehearse to somebody before I face
two or three hundred people."
He thought he heard a knocking on his door, and listened a moment.
But as there was an electric bell there he concluded he had been
mistaken; and picking up the other white cat, he began a gentle
massage that stimulated her purring, apparently at the expense of her
color and size, for in a few moments she also dwindled until she
became a very small, coal-black kitten, changing in a twinkling to a
blackbird, when he cast her carelessly toward the ceiling. It was well
done; in all India no magician could have done it more cleverly, more
casually.
Leaning forward in his chair he reproduced the two white cats from
behind him, put the kittens back in their box, caught the blackbird and
caged it, and was carefully winding up the hairspring in the white
butterfly, when again he fancied that somebody was knocking.
[Illustration]

III
THE GREEN MOUSE
Showing the Value of a Helping Hand When It Is White and Slender

This time he went leisurely to the door and opened it; a girl stood there,
saying, "I beg your pardon for disturbing you--" It was high time she
admitted it, for her eyes had been disturbing him day and night since
the first time he passed her in the hall.
She appeared to be a trifle frightened, too, and, scarcely waiting for his
invitation, she stepped inside with a hurried glance behind her, and
walked to the center of the room holding her skirts carefully as though
stepping through wet grass.
"I--I am annoyed," she said in a voice not perfectly under command. "If
you please, would you tell me whether there is such a thing as a pea-
green mouse?"
Then he did a mean thing; he could have cleared up that matter with a
word, a smile, and--he didn't.
"A green mouse?" he repeated gently, almost pitifully.
She nodded, then paled; he drew a big chair toward her, for her knees
trembled a little; and she sat down with an appealing glance that ought
to have made him ashamed of himself.
"What has frightened you?" inquired that meanest of men.
"I was in my studio--and I must first explain to you that for weeks and
weeks I--I have imagined I heard sounds--" She looked carefully
around her; nothing animate was visible. "Sounds," she repeated,
swallowing a little lump in her white throat, "like the faint squealing
and squeaking and sniffing and scratching of--of live things. I asked the
janitor, and he said the house was not very well built and that the
beams and wainscoting were shrinking."
"Did he say that?" inquired the young man, thinking of the bribes.
"Yes, and I tried to believe him. And one day I thought I heard about
one hundred canaries singing, and I know I did, but that idiot janitor
said they were the sparrows under the eaves. Then one day when your

door was open, and I was coming up the stairway, and it was dark in
the entry, something big and soft flopped across the carpet, and--it
being exceedingly common to scream--I didn't, but managed to get past
it, and"-- her violet eyes widened with horror--"do you know what that
soft, floppy thing was? It was an owl!"
He was aware of it; he had managed to secure the escaped bird before
her electric summons could arouse the janitor.
"I called the janitor," she said, "and he came and we searched the entry;
but there was no owl."
He appeared to be greatly impressed; she recognized the sympathy in
his brown eyes.
"That wretched janitor declared I had seen a cat," she resumed; "and I
could not persuade him otherwise. For a week I scarcely dared set foot
on the stairs, but I had to--you see, I live at home and only come to my
studio to paint."
"I thought you lived here," he said, surprised.
"Oh, no. I have my studio--" she hesitated, then smiled. "Everybody
makes fun of me, and I suppose they'll laugh me out of it, but I detest
conventions, and I did hope I had talent for something besides
frivolity."
Her gaze wandered around his room; then suddenly the possible
significance of her unconventional situation brought her to her feet,
serious but self-possessed.
"I beg your pardon again," she said, "but I