A blundering Bat once stuck her head   Into a wakeful Weasel's bed;
  Whereat the mistress of the house,
    A deadly foe of rats and mice,
    Was making ready in a trice
  To eat the stranger as a mouse.
  "What! do you dare," she said, "to creep in
  The very bed I sometimes sleep in,
  Now, after all the provocation
  I've suffered from your thievish nation?
  It's plain to see you are a mouse,
  That gnawing pest of every house,
  Your special aim to do the cheese ill.
  Ay, that you are, or I'm no Weasel."
    "I beg your pardon," said the Bat;
    "My kind is very far from that.
  What! I a mouse! Who told you such a lie?
    Why, ma'am, I am a bird;
    And, if you doubt my word,
  Just see the wings with which I fly.
  Long live the mice that cleave the sky!"
    These reasons had so fair a show,
    The Weasel let the creatur............