Two Sketches
I—Mercedes
When I was a child some one gave me a family of white mice. I don't remember how old I was, I think about ten or eleven; but I remember very clearly the day I received them. It must have been a Thursday, a half-holiday, for I had come home from school rather early in the afternoon. Alexandre, dear old ruddy round-faced Alexandre, who opened the door for me, smiled in a way that seemed to announce, "There's a surprise in store for you, sir." Then my mother smiled too, a smile, I thought, of peculiar promise and interest. After I had kissed her she said, "Come into the dining-room. There's something you will like." Perhaps I concluded it would be something to eat. Anyhow, all agog with curiosity, I followed her into the dining-room—and Alexandre followed me, anxious to take part in the rejoicing. In the window stood a big cage, enclosing the family of white mice.
I remember it as a very big cage indeed; no doubt I should find it shrunken to quite moderate dimensions if I could see it again. There were three generations of mice in it: a fat old couple, the founders of the race, dozing phlegmatically on their
