The Roly-Poly Pudding Page #2

								

fireplace, balancing himself upon the
iron bar where the kettle hangs.

Tom Kitten took another big jump
off the bar and landed on a ledge high
up inside the chimney, knocking down
some soot into the fender.

Tom Kitten coughed and choked
with the smoke; he could hear the
sticks beginning to crackle and burn
in the fireplace down below. He made
up his mind to climb right to the top,
and get out on the slates, and try to
catch sparrows.

"I cannot go back. If I slipped I
might fall in the fire and singe my
beautiful tail and my little blue
jacket."

The chimney was a very big old-
fashioned one. It was built in the days
when people burnt logs of wood upon
the hearth.

The chimney stack stood up above
the roof like a little stone tower, and
the daylight shone down from the top,
under the slanting slates that kept out
the rain.

Tom Kitten was getting very
frightened! He climbed up, and up,
and up.

Then he waded sideways through
inches of soot. He was like a little
sweep himself.

It was most confusing in the dark.
One flue seemed to lead into another.

There was less smoke, but Tom
Kitten felt quite lost.

He scrambled up and up; but
before he reached the chimney top he
came to a place where somebody had
loosened a stone in the wall. There
were some mutton bones lying about.

"This seems funny," said Tom
Kitten. "Who has been gnawing bones
up here in the chimney? I wish I had
never come! And what a funny smell?
It is something like mouse, only
dreadfully strong. It makes me
sneeze," said Tom Kitten.

He squeezed through the hole in
the wall and dragged himself along a
most uncomfortably tight passage
where there was scarcely any light.

He groped his way carefully for
several yards; he was at the back of
the skirting board in the attic, where
there is a little mark * in the picture.

All at once he fell head over heels in
the dark, down a hole, and landed on
a heap of very dirty rags.

When Tom Kitten picked himself up
and looked about him, he found
himself in a place that he had never
seen before, although he had lived all
his life in the house. It was a very
small stuffy fusty room, with boards,
and rafters, and cobwebs, and lath
and plaster.

Opposite to him--as far away as he
could sit--was an enormous rat.

"What do you mean by tumbling
into my bed all covered with smuts?"
said the rat, chattering his teeth.

"Please, sir, the chimney wants
sweeping," said poor Tom Kitten.

"Anna Maria! Anna Maria!"
squeaked the rat. There was a
pattering noise and an old woman rat
poked her head round a rafter.

All in a minute she rushed upon
Tom Kitten, and before he knew what
was happening. . .

. . . his coat was pulled off, and he
was rolled up in a bundle, and tied
with string in very hard knots.

Anna Maria did the tying. The old
rat watched her and took snuff. When
she had finished, they both sat staring
at him with their mouths open.

"Anna Maria," said the old man rat
(whose name was Samuel Whiskers),
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