One For A Box Full Of Mice

“Where is your hope now, little mouse?”, asked a mean ginger tom as he dangled a little brown mouse by its tail.

Suddenly, a whole group of mice approached the cat, sobbing into tiny mouse handkerchiefs, “Please take us instead of him”, they cried, “For he is our leader and we are nothing without him but we would gladly give up ourselves for him".

The cat counted the mice in the group and scratched his ginger chin in thought, “Hmm? If I give up this one little mouse then I can have that whole group of mice in its place”, but the cat didn’t trust the mice, “How can I be sure that if I let this mouse go, then you will not all run away the moment that he is free?”.

“Because”, replied the mice, dragging an old cardboard shoebox and its lid in front of the cat, “we shall put ourselves into this box and you can close the lid on top of it and then we will be trapped and won’t be able to get out”.

And, saying this, the mice started to climb into the box and, with every mouse he saw enter the box, the cat became more convinced that it was a good deal, “A box full of mice just for letting one little scrawny mouse go”, thought the cat, licking its furry lips, “That’s quite a bargain”.

And so, the cat agreed to the deal and he let the little mouse in his hand go free and rushed to put the lid upon the box, “Ha!”, he said, feeling pleased with himself as he lifted up the box and held it in his paws, “Now I’ve got a whole boxful of mice and I’m going to eat them all up”.

But what the foolish cat hadn’t realized was that the old shoe box had no bottom to it and, the moment that the cat lifted it up, all the clever mice ran away.