My Mary is a rat. It is just as well to state this much at the outset. Candour, indeed, necessitates my doing so, because I know the very name of “rat” carries with it feelings which are far from pleasing to many. And now, having broken the ice, I may tell you that Mary is not an ordinary black or brown rat, but a rat of high, high caste indeed, having come from a far-away Oriental clime – Java, to wit. If you had never seen one of the same breed before, you would hardly take Mary to be a rat at all. Children are exceedingly fond of her; gentlemen admire her; old ladies dote on her, and young ones love her. I think even my black tom-cat is especially fond of her, judging from the notice he takes of her; he will sit for hours, and hardly ever take his green eyes off her cage.

Black Tom once paid Mary a domiciliary visit, by way of appearing neighbourly. It was a grand spring, but missed by an inch, so Tom returned, looking inglorious.

Having so far introduced my Mary, and confident you will like her better as you read on, let me try to describe the winsome wee thing. Mary – my rodent, let me call her – is smaller than a rat, and not quite the same in shape, for Mary’s symmetry is elegance itself. Her eyes round, protrusive, but loving withal, are living burning garnets – garnets that speak. Her whole body is covered with long snowy fur, far richer than the finest ermine, and with an almost imperceptible golden tint at the tips, this tint being only seen in certain lights. Her tail is perhaps one of her principal points of beauty – long, sweeping, and graceful; she positively seems to talk with it. The forearms are very short and delicate, the hind-legs strong and muscular. Sitting on one end is Mary’s almost constant position – kangaroo-like; then she holds up her little hands beseechingly before her. These latter are almost human in shape, and when she gives you her delicate, cold, transparent paw, you might easily fancy you were shaking hands with a fairy; and thus she is often called “Fairy Mary.” Mary’s hands are bare and pink, and the wrists are covered with very short downy fur, after which the coat suddenly elongates, so much so, that when she stands on end to watch a fly on the ceiling, you would imagine she wore a gown tight at the wrist, and with drooping sleeves.

Now Mary is not only beautiful, but she is winning and graceful as well, for every one says so who sees her. And in under her soft fur Mary’s skin is as clean and white and pure as mother-of-pearl. It only remains to say of this little pet, that in all her ways and manners she is as cleanly as the best-bred Persian cat, and her fur has not the faintest odour, musky or otherwise.

Fairy Mary was originally one of three which came to me as a present. Alas for the fate of Mary’s twin sister and only brother! A vagrant cat one evening in summer, while I was absent, entered by the open window, broke into the cage, and Mary alone was left alive. For a long time after this Mary was missing. She was seen at times, of an evening, flitting ghost-like across the kitchen floor, but she persistently refused to return to her desolated cage-home. She much preferred leading a free and easy vagrant kind of life between the cellar, the pantry, and the kitchen. She came out at times, however, and took her food when she thought nobody was looking, and she was known to have taken up her abode in one corner of the pantry, where once a mouse had lived. When she took this new house, I suppose she found it hardly large enough for her needs, because she speedily took to cleaning it out, and judging from the shovelfuls of rags, paper, shavings, and litter of all sorts, very industrious indeed must have been the lives of the “wee, tim’rous, cowerin’ beasties” who formerly lived there. Then Mary built unto herself a new home in that sweet retirement, and very happy she seemed to be.

Not happening to possess a cat just then, the mice had it all their own way; they increased and multiplied, if they didn’t replenish the kitchen, and Mary reigned among them – a Bohemian princess, a gipsy queen. I used to leave a lamp burning in the kitchen on purpose to watch their antics, and before going to bed, and when all the house was still, I used to go and peep carefully through a little hole in the door. And there Fairy Mary would be, sure enough, racing round and round the kitchen like a mad thing, chased by at least a dozen mice, and every one of them squeaking with glee. But if I did but laugh – which, for the life of me, I could not sometimes help – off bolted the mice, leaving Fairy Mary to do an attitude wherever she might be. Then Mary would sniff the air, and listen, and so, scenting danger, hop off, kangaroo fashion, to her home in the pantry corner.

It really did seem a pity to break up this pleasant existence of Mary’s, but it had to be done. Mice eat so much, and destroy more. My mice, with Mary at their head, were perfect sappers and miners. They thought nothing of gutting a loaf one night, and holding a ball in it the next. So, eventually, Mary was captured, and once more confined to her cage, which she insisted upon having hung up in our sitting-room, where she could see all that went on. Here she never attempted, even once, to nibble her cage, but if hung out in the kitchen nothing could keep her in.

At this stage of her existence, the arrangements for Mary’s comfort were as follows: she dwelt in a nice roomy cage, with two perches in it, which she very much enjoyed. She had a glass dish for her food, and another for her milk, and the floor of the cage was covered with pine shavings, regularly changed once in two days, and among which Mary built her nest.

Now, Fairy Mary has a very strong resemblance to a miniature polar bear, that is, she has all the motions of one, and does all his attitudes – in fact, acts the part of Bruin to perfection. This first gave me the notion – which I can highly recommend to the reader – of making Mary not only amusing, but ornamental to our sitting-room as well, for it must be confessed that a plain wooden cage in one’s room is neither graceful nor pretty, however lovely the inmate may be. And here is how I managed it. At the back of our sitting-room is the kitchen, the two apartments being separated by a brick wall. Right through this wall a hole or tunnel was drilled big enough for Mary to run through with ease. The kitchen end of this tunnel was closed by means of a little door, which was so constructed that by merely touching an unseen spring in the sitting-room, it could be opened at will. Against the kitchen end of the tunnel a cage for Mary was hung. This was to be her dining-room, her nest, and sleeping-berth. Now, for the sitting-room end of the tunnel, I had a painting made on a sheet of glass, over two feet long by eighteen inches high. The scene represented is from a sketch in North Greenland, which I myself had made, a scene in the frozen sea – the usual blue sky which you always find over the ice, an expanse of snow, a bear in the distance, and a ship frozen in and lying nearly on her beam ends. A dreary enough look-out, in all conscience, but true to nature.

There was a hole cut in the lower end of this glass picture, to match the diameter of the tunnel, and the picture was then fastened close against the wall. So far you will have followed me. The next thing was to frame this glass picture in a kind of cage, nine inches deep; the peculiarity of this cage being, that the front of it was a sheet of clear white glass, the sides only being of brass wire; the floor and top were of wood, the former being painted white, like the snow, and the latter blue, to form a continuation of the sky; a few imitation icebergs were glued on here and there, and one of these completely hides the entrance to the tunnel, forming a kind of rude cave – Fairy Mary’s cave.

In the centre of this cage was raised a small bear’s pole steps and all complete. We call it the North Pole. The whole forms a very pretty ornament indeed, especially when Mary is acting on this little Greenland stage.

Mary knows her name, and never fails to come to call, and indeed she knows a very great deal that is said to her. Whenever she pops through her tunnel, the little door at the kitchen end closes behind her, and she is a prisoner in Greenland until I choose to send her off. If she is in her kitchen cage, and I wish her to come north, and disport herself to the amusement of myself or friends – one touch to the spring, one cabalistic word, and there comes the little performer, all alive and full of fun.

Now I wish the reader to remember that Fairy Mary is not only the very essence of cleanliness, but the pink of politeness as well. Hence, Mary is sometimes permitted to come to table. And Mary is an honest rat. She has been taught to look at everything, but handle nothing. Therefore there cannot be the slightest possible objection to her either sitting on my shoulder on one end, and gazing wonderingly around her, or examining my ear, or making a nest of my beard, or running down my arm, and having a dance over the tablecloth. I think I said Mary was an honest rat, but she has just one tiny failing in the way of honesty, which, as her biographer, I am bound to mention. She can’t quite resist the temptation of a bit of butter. But she helps herself to just one little handful, and does it, too, with such a graceful air, that, for the life of me, I couldn’t be angry with her.

Well, except a morsel of butter, Mary will touch nothing on the table, nor will she take anything from your hand, if you offer it to her ever so coaxingly. She prefers to eat her meals in Greenland, or on the North Pole itself.

Mary’s tastes as regards food are various. She is partial to a bit of cheese, but would not touch bacon for the world. This is rather strange, because it was exactly the other way with her brother and sister.

The great treat of the twenty-four hours with Mary is to get down in the evening, when the lamps are lighted, to have a scamper on the table. Her cage is brought in from the kitchen, and set down, and the door of it thrown open. This cage thus becomes Mary’s harbour of refuge, from which she can sally forth and play tricks. Anything you place on the table is seized forthwith, and carried inside. She will carry an apple nearly as big as herself, and there will not be much of it left in the morning; for one of Mary’s chief delights is to have a little feast all to herself, when the lights are out. Lettuce leaves she is partial to, and will carry them to her cage as fast as you can throw them down to her. She rummages the work-basket, and hops off with every thimble she can find.

After Fairy Mary’s private establishment was broken up in the kitchen, it became necessary to clean up the corner of the pantry where she had dwelt. Then was Mary’s frugality and prudence as a housewife made clear to the light of day I could hardly be supposed to tell you everything she had stored up, but I remember there were crusts of bread, bits of cheese, lumps of dog-biscuit, halves of apples, small potatoes, and crumbs of sugar, and candle ends, and bones and herrings’ heads, besides one pair of gold sleeve-links, an odd shirt-stud, a glass stopper from a scent-bottle, brass buttons, and, to crown the lot, one silver threepenny-piece of the sterling coin of the realm.

And that is the story of my rat; and I’m sure if you knew her you, too, would like her. She is such a funny, wee, sweet little mite of a Mary.