from under bowls and basins, stepped other and more little mice, who hopped away down off the dresser and under the wainscot. 

                The tailor sat down, close over the fire, lamenting: "One-and-twenty buttonholes of cherry-coloured silk! To be finished by noon of Saturday:                and this is Tuesday evening. Was it right to let loose those mice, undoubtedly the property of Simpkin? Alack, I am undone, for I have no more twist!"                 The little mice came out again and listened to the tailor; they took notice of the pattern of that wonderful coat. They whispered to one another about the taffeta lining and about little mouse tippets. And then suddenly they all ran away together down the passage behind the wainscot, squeaking and calling to one another as they ran from house to house. Not one mouse was left in the tailor's kitchen when Simpkin came back. He set down the pipkin of milk upon the dresser, and looked suspiciously at the tea-cups. He wanted his supper of little fat mouse!                 "Simpkin," said the tailor, "where is my TWIST?" 

                But Simpkin hid a little parcel privately in the tea-pot, and spit and growled at the tailor; and if Simpkin had been able to talk, he would have asked: "Where is my MOUSE?"                 "Alack, I am undone!" said the Tailor of Gloucester, and went sadly to bed. All that night long Simpkin hunted and searched through the kitchen, peeping into cupboards and under the wainscot, and into the tea-pot where he had hidden that twist; but still he found never a mouse! The poor old tailor was very ill with a fever, tossing and turning in his four-post bed; and still in his dreams he mumbled: "No more twist! no more twist!"                 What should become of the cherry-                coloured coat? Who should come to sew it, when the window was barred, and the door was fast locked? 

                Out-of-doors the market folks went         

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