ONLY THE OTHER DAY our dear Tish observed that the attempt to help humanity was always an ungrateful one. To support this she quoted the incident of the mouse, and the attitude of Charlie Sands, her nephew, when he found her tied to the bed in the psychopathic ward of our local hospital. She had been on the board of that hospital for years, but no one had even recognized her. As to Charlie Sands himself, his manner was cold and even resentful when, having at last discovered her, he stood over her bed and gazed down at her.
“What does this mean?” was his opening speech, in a stern voice. “Open your eyes and look at me. What about an elephant?”
And when she tried to tell him about where she had left Aggie, and about the elephant and so on, the doctor—who should have known better—said that this was merely a delusion. Nor were things better about the peanuts, although that should have been obvious.
“All right,” said Charlie Sands. “I get some of it. According to you Aggie has been captured by an elephant and Lizzie has lost her hat. But you are here. What I want to know is why you are here. And how.”
“I was merely trying to get some peanuts,” said Tish coldly. “What is so extraordinary about that?”
“That is what I am asking,” he observed. “The fact that you broke into the stand in the middle of the night to do so is not unusual. Nor even the fact that a police officer claims that you broke his nose. All I am asking is why? Why are you here? And why, for instance, the peanuts?”
And then Tish became her old self, after a night of anxiety and hazard such as few women could have endured.
“Don’t be a fool,” she said sharply. “For the elephant, of course.”
It was I believe at that time that the nurse brought him the aromatic ammonia.
As Tish has said since, it should all have been perfectly clear to him by that time. After all, we had spent the entire night attempting to help him, and that at his own request. As to his observation—made later—that the broken fire plug flooded a number of cellars, all damage has since been paid. And I still maintain that resistance to unjustified capture is a citizen’s duty. We have all seen Officer O’Brien since, and if his nose was broken by the rim of the butterfly net it certainly shows no sign of it.
Actually it began with Charlie Sands’ request that we find a mouse for him. We had dined with Tish that night, and Hannah, Tish’s maid, had baked one of her celebrated pecan-nut pies. What with that and a glass each of blackberry cordial we were in a contented frame of mind. Then the doorbell rang, and it was Charlie Sands, accompanied by a very pretty girl.
It appeared that her name was Paula, and that her father was the managing editor of Charlie Sands’ newspaper. Also that she herself did the society column on the paper. But I must admit that we were surprised at the object of their visit.
They wanted a mouse!
“Preferably a live one,” said Charlie Sands. “Certainly one of a bland expression, undamaged by the usual sort of trap. A domestic mouse, even a good family mouse, with the usual fangs, whiskers and so on. The taxidermist insists on these.”
“What taxidermist?” Tish inquired.
“The one who is going to mount the head,” he said.
I dare say we looked bewildered, for Paula hastened to explain. Her father had lately returned from a hunting trip in Africa, bringing a number of trophies, such as mounted heads and antlers. What was more, he talked of nothing else, and something had to be done about it.
“He’s driven mother crazy,” she said. “You know how it is: zebra rugs, lionskins hither and yon, a stuffed giraffe with a ten-foot neck in the corner, an elephant’s foot and leg for an umbrella stand and a hippopotamus over the mantel. And it’s as bad at the office. So now we want a mouse.”
Tish dropped her knitting and stared at them.
“But why a mouse?” she inquired. “A bushel of moths would be better.”
They liked their own plan better, however, the idea being that all the office force give him a bang-up dinner with speeches, and then present him the head of a mouse, properly mounted. It appeared that he had killed a mouse some days before, but had fed it to the office cat.
“It’s to be a hint,” said Charlie Sands. “A hint that we’re fed up, as you may say. But now that we need one we can’t find a mouse. How about this building? Does the janitor have mice, or does he keep a cat?”
“He keeps a cat,” Tish informed him.
Charlie Sands then gave a hollow groan and said that this was Friday and they had to have the mouse by Monday. Only there were no mice.
“It’s a crying evil,” he said. “There must be millions of cats about. When I think of all the poor little Mus musculus—or whatever the plural is—hounded by millions of cats, it seems both cruel and unfair.”
In the end they asked us if we would undertake the commission, all else having failed, and Tish finally agreed. Only Aggie protested, having a terror of the creatures, but Tish ignored her.
“It seems a simple matter,” she observed. “We shall need tomorrow to make a few preparations, but that is all.”
I remember that Charlie Sands looked rather anxious at that.
“Of course,” he said hastily, “what we want is merely a mouse. Not a camel or a tiger. Not even a rhinoceros. Just bear that in mind, will you? Knowing you as I do—”
“I think you can trust me,” said Tish coldly, and took up her knitting again.
They were more cheerful after that, and as they prepared to go he swore us to secrecy on the whole matter; especially to watch out for one man.
“One of our fellows got fired the other day,” he said. “He disappeared for a week and the old man let him out. He might be dangerous. He knows the plot.”
I noticed that Paula colored.
“That idiot!” she said. “What can he do? I wrote him a note asking him to get me a mouse, and he read it moose and went all the way to Canada for it. Was it my fault that it got him into a tree and then tried to butt the tree down?”
However that might be, Charlie Sands warned us to be careful of this person, whose name appeared to be Bill Lawrence, and who, having failed to secure the mouse himself, had flatly stated that no one else would. He had indeed said that he would either be reinstated on the paper or he would publish the whole story in the rival newspaper, the Gazette.
“He would do it too,” said Paula. “He is angry and capable of anything. Also he has a terrible disposition, mean and vindictive. I am sorry for any girl who is idiot enough to marry him.”
She then sighed and said he was no reporter anyhow, and the office was well rid of him; but he had no idea we were going to help them out, and so we were probably safe.
They finally departed, and we went into executive session at once. As Charlie Sands had said, mice were like athlete’s foot: many are afflicted but few admit it. And although we are opposed to killing any living creature, all of us being members of the S.P.C.A., there was no doubt that mice carried germs and were therefore a menace to the human race.
It was Tish’s suggestion that we make the capture as painless as possible, and that to this end a butterfly net and a pound or so of cheese would be the only essentials.
“In this way,” she said, “will the mouse not only be uninjured, but placed at once in a jar with the cheese, its last hours will be happy and its final expression mild and normal.”
Our preparations the next day were simple. Tish made out a list, including the butterfly net, a flashlight, a pound of cheese, and a small tin of shoe blacking in case we needed to darken our faces. These we secured. But it became evident after certain inquiries that the search was not to be so simple as we had anticipated.
Hannah, interrogated as to mice in the kitchen, burst into tears and offered to leave at once; and the janitor of Tish’s building was most unpleasant.
“Mice!” he said. “There’s none there unless you put them there yourself, Miss Carberry. And that wouldn’t surprise me either,” he added darkly.
I must say that Aggie, too, was most discouraging. As fear always affects her nasal passages, she sneezed constantly, so that in the end Tish suggested that she need not participate. This only offended her, although time was to prove that our dear Tish as usual had been right. I may say, too, that up to that afternoon we had not considered the matter of a mousetrap. As Tish said, with such a contraption we ran the risk of injury to the mouse.
But that afternoon a young man called with quite an unusual one. True, it was large and bulky, but he stated at once that mice so caught were not injured at all.
“Or at least,” he added, “not necessarily. The can or reservoir may of course be filled with water, thus drowning the little creature. But left dry it is quite safe.”
He then explained the mechanism.
“You get the idea,” he said. “The mouse enters here on the floor level for the cheese. As it does so it trips the door, which imprisons it quite harmlessly. After eating the cheese it naturally seeks to escape, but the door is closed. It therefore climbs this gentle winding ascent to the top of the reservoir and steps on this small plank. Its weight trips the plank and it slides painlessly into the reservoir; to life or death as you may decide.”
He seemed very gratified when we purchased it, and as he was quite pleasant and even good-looking, Tish gave him a glass of cordial. This seemed to cheer him, and he stated that he was only selling mousetraps temporarily.
“I had hoped for better things,” he said, with a faint smile at all of us. “I had a job. I had a future. I even had a girl. I was,” he added brokenly, “very much in love with her. But in the end she failed me. Any girl who would act as she did—Well, never mind about that. Here’s to the trap, ladies; and the mouse.”
Before he left he said his name was Jones, and that he might drop in from time to time to see how the mechanism was operating. When I recall that, and his duplicity throughout the entire affair, I am filled with indignation. But it must be stated, here and now, that none of us were responsible for the treatment he received later during the incident at the Zoo. Or for his broken camera.