‘If you waz ter ask me,’ said Uncle Sid, ‘I’d say it was floor-food.’
‘Better than the snapper,’ said Frankie-boy perkily, to which Uncle Sid replied, sadly and truthfully, ‘You dunno whatcha talkin’ of, boy.’
For her part, Mokey Moke – with seven new Rivals to feed, as well as the rest of the family, not to mention Furball and Radish themselves – was very grateful to the hamsters for bringing home such a magnificent, large, buttery piece of toast.
It had been welcome enough when Furball had scurried up and down the chimney three times with her pouches full of chewed toast. But Mokey Moke had never believed the hamster’s prattle about the Giant putting the food out specially.
‘It’s every moke fer issel, Furba,’ she’d said. ‘Ooms don’t elp rodents. I keep tellin yer – it’s not in their nature.’
‘But the Giant,’ explained Furball, ‘has always put food out for me. And now she knows where we are, she will keep putting food out.’
Mokey Moke and the others hadn’t liked this talk of an oom who knew where they were. Some of them spoke in hasty panicky tones of moving on at once before the Giant oom could trap or kill them all. Others dismissed Furball’s ideas.
‘It’s jus food,’ said Buster. ‘Either it’s floor-food – in which case you an uvver-amster’d be dead by nar – which you ain’t. Or it’s jus food. It fell on the floor by accident. You got lucky. There ain’t no Giant wot puts out toast fer Furball and the mokes.’
‘If the Giant knew we were here,’ said Furball indignantly, ‘she would even save me the trouble of going down the tunnel. She’d bring the toast to this floor.’
‘I fought you said she does know where you is.’
‘She might not know exactly,’ said Furball cautiously. ‘But if she did, she’d bring me food.’
‘Oh, yeah,’ said Buster, ‘an put it on a neat little plate for you n all.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Furball.
It was satisfying to be proved right within a few minutes. While Mokey Moke and others devoured the few pouchfuls of chewed toast which Furball had brought for them, she was able to take Buster to the edge of the brick ledge in the chimney where they were living.
‘Love a duck,’ said Buster. It was the closest the perky young moke had ever been in his life to admitting he had been wrong.
‘Would you help me carry the toast which the Giant has so kindly brought?’ Furball inquired. ‘On a china plate,’ she added, perhaps unnecessarily.
‘You betcha!’
But then he froze.
‘Supposin.’
Radish, the strong silent type of hamster, who had not said a word, looked at Buster with particular attention.
‘Supposin it’s a trick? Supposin the Giant lets you nibble off a bit and then covers the floor-food with the killer dose. Jus supposin…’
But Furball didn’t have time for any of this. She scurried down the wall of the chimney, followed by Radish. Between them, the two hamsters were able to push the piece of toast off the plate and carry it back to the shadows of the fireplace. Buster helped them heave it up the sooty wall to their brick ledge.
‘Now that,’ said Mokey Moke, ‘that’s what I’d call room service.’