Tittlemouse! No
teeth, no teeth, no teeth!” said Mr. Jackson.
He opened his mouth most unnecessarily wide; he certainly had not a tooth in his
head.
Then she offered him thistle-down seed — “Tiddly,
widdly, widdly! Pouff, pouff, puff!” said Mr. Jackson. He blew the thistle-down all over the room.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you, Mrs. Tittlemouse! Now what I really — really should like — would be a little dish of honey!”
“I am afraid I have not got any, Mr. Jackson!”
said Mrs. Tittlemouse.
“Tiddly, widdly, widdly, Mrs. Tittlemouse!” said the smiling Mr. Jackson. “I can
smell it; that is why I came to call.”
Mr. Jackson rose ponderously from the table, and began to look into the
cupboards.
Mrs. Tittlemouse followed him with a dish-cloth, to wipe his large wet footmarks off
the parlour floor.
When he had convinced himself that there was no
honey in the cupboards, he began to walk down the passage.
“Indeed, indeed, you will stick fast, Mr. Jackson!”
“Tiddly, widdly, widdly, Mrs. Tittlemouse!”
First he squeezed into the pantry.
“Tiddly, widdly, widdly? no honey? no honey, Mrs. Tittlemouse?”
There were three creepy-crawly people hiding in the plate-rack. Two of them got away;
but the littlest one he caught.
Then he squeezed into the larder. Miss Butterfly
was tasting the sugar; but she flew away out of the window.
“Tiddly, widdly, widdly, Mrs. Tittlemouse; you seem to have plenty of
visitors!”
“And without any invitation!” said Mrs. Thomasina Tittlemouse.
They went along the sandy passage — “Tiddly widdly
—” “Buzz! Wizz! Wizz!”
He met Babbitty round a corner, and snapped her up, and put her down again.
“I do not like bumble bees. They are all over bristles,” said Mr. Jackson, wiping his
mouth with his coat-sleeve.
“Get out, you nasty old toad!” shrieked Babbitty Bumble.
“I shall go distracted!” scolded Mrs. Tittlemouse.
She shut herself up in the nut-cellar while Mr.
Jackson pulled out the bees-nest. He seemed to have no objection to stings.
When Mrs. Tittlemouse ventured to come out — everybody had gone away.
But the untidiness was something dreadful — “Never did I see such a mess — smears of
honey; and moss, and thistle-down — and marks of big and little dirty feet — all over my nice clean
house!”
She gathered up the moss and the remains of the
beeswax.
Then she went out and fetched some twigs, to partly close up the front door.
“I will make it too small for Mr. Jackson!”
She fetched soft soap, and flannel, and a new
scrubbing brush from the storeroom. But she was too tired to do any more. First she fell asleep in her
chair, and then she went to bed.
“Will it ever be tidy again?” said poor Mrs. Tittlemouse.
Next morning she got up very early and began a
spring cleaning which lasted a fortnight.
She swept, and scrubbed, and dusted; and she rubbed up the furniture with beeswax, and
polished her little tin spoons.
When it was all beautifully neat and clean, she
gave a party to five other little mice, without Mr. Jackson.
He smelt the party and came up the bank, but he could not squeeze in at the
door.
So they handed him out acorn-cupfuls of honeydew through the window, and he was not at
all offended.
He sat outside in the sun, and said — “Tiddly, widdly, widdly! Your very good health,
Mrs. Tittlemouse!”
The End
FREDERICK WARNE
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand,
London WC2R
0RL, England
Website: www.peterrabbit.com
First published by Frederick Warne 1910
This electronic edition first published 2010
New reproductions copyright ©Frederick Warne & Co., 2002
Original copyright in text and illustrations ©Frederick Warne & Co., 1910
Frederick Warne & Co.
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