“Stop! stop!” cried the City Mouse. “That is a trap!”

The little Country Mouse stopped and said, “What is a trap?”

“That thing is a trap,” said the little City Mouse. “The minute you touch the cheese with your teeth something comes down on your head hard, and you’re dead.”

The little Country Mouse looked at the trap, and he looked at the cheese, and he looked at the little City Mouse. “If you’ll excuse me,” he said, “I think I will go home. I’d rather have barley and grain to eat and eat it in peace and comfort, than have brown sugar and dried prunes and cheese,–and be frightened to death all the time!”

So the little Country Mouse went back to his home, and there he stayed all the rest of his life.