The Greedy Mouse

Jiminy was a little mouse who lived in a hole in Mrs Darley’s house. He loved to eat but he had a big problem in his life: Mrs Darley’s cat, Bouncer. Bouncer had seen him scurrying across the floor one day and ever since then, he kept an eye open for that wretched little mouse.
There were terrible times at home when Jiminy set out to pick up some food from the kitchen. Bouncer would come pussy-footing behind him and then pounce on him. There would be a ferocious snarl as Jiminy raced into hiding and Bouncer dashed around and things fell from tables and broke! Jiminy ate anything that he could find. And he found a lot of things: bread, cheese, cookies, slices of cake, nuts, fish…. The things he found were delicious. One day, there had been a very tiring chase all around the house. Jiminy was exhausted.
“There must be some way to get to all the goodies without having to tangle with this cat!” thought Jiminy.
After thinking about it, he came up with a bright idea. “It’s when I’m eating that he sneaks up on me. I should take the stuff to my home and eat it in comfort there later,” he decided.
After this, he would come out of his hole, look around for Bouncer, run to the kitchen, pick up whatever he could find and scamper off to his hole again. By the time Bouncer got alert, he was safely home!

This worked beautifully and Jiminy was thrilled that he had made such a brilliant and successful plan! He became more and more adventurous. One day, he found a large jar of honey on a shelf in the larder. Jiminy nibbled the cover and the jar tipped over. Honey spilt all over the shelf. One lick was enough for Jiminy to lose all self-control. He licked all the honey he could manage to eat. Then as he began to scamper back home, he felt his feet were slipping. They were honey-soaked! Bouncer had woken up and started following the honey trail.
When Jiminy reached his hole, he was stuck in it because he had eaten so much honey! He tried very hard to push himself through. But he could neither go in nor pull himself out. Bouncer came along just then and that was the end of poor Jiminy, the greedy mouse!
Moral: Greed always leads to a bad end.

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