"What I have in mind is told, in a foolish kind of a way, I suppose, by Mr. Crow, who wrote the verses when Mr. Man's little girl Dolly wanted a pet, and no matter how much she thought of one, if it died, or got lost, the next that came along suited her almost as well.

"Of course I don't want you to suppose I think this is anything but nonsense; but at the same time it carries out the idea of what I have been trying to say," and then Mrs. Mouser repeated the following:

I once possessed an Elephant
Who fed on potted grouse;
One day I lost him, but I think
He's somewhere in the house.

The Delicate Pet

I had a Hippopotamus
Who really was quite slim;
He caught a chill, and so I thought
I'd best get rid of him.

I also had a gay Giraffe,
Whose antics made me wince;
He went a walk to Brooklyn town,
I've never seen him since.

The Pet Who Went to Brooklyn

The Puffing Fish that I possessed
Would fill my heart with pride;
But ah! one day I made a joke--
He laughed so that he died.

You should have seen my Polar Bear,
He was a lively beast;
But what became of him at last
I've no idea, the least.

The Very Sociable Pet

My Grizzly Bear was certainly
By all my friends admired.
He tried to climb the Monument,
And when he failed, expired.

Perhaps the dearest of them all
Was James, my Cockatoo--
He took to stopping out at nights;
I gave him to the Zoo

The Lively Pet

So now I haven't anything;
It's lonely, I must own.
I'll get a little calf, I think--
I cannot live alone!

"I don't wonder you call that 'Menagerie Poetry,'" your Aunt Amy said when Mrs. Mouser ceased speaking; "but I think I understood, even without the aid of the verses, the moral you intended to draw."

"I should hope you did; but I remembered those lines, and it seemed to me they came in just right. There is a story he tells about the Elephant and the Bee, which teaches the same kind of a lesson."