A CAT once made friends with a mouse. She told him all sorts of sweet little lies about how important friendship was for her and how tender and affectionate she felt about him, so that, when her master one day kicked her out of his house, the mouse gladly accepted her in the basement where he lived. "We must be ready for the winter, however, or else we will be hungry", the cat advised. "And you, my dear mouse, be very careful not to step on any mouse trap that the house lord keeps putting in this basement".

 The mouse heard the cat, so they bought a barrel of butter together, which they had little idea where to store. After much thought, the cat suggested they keep it in the cellar. "Nobody will take notice if we put it next to the big wine barrels", the cat advised the mouse.

So, they safely hid the barrel in the cellar. As the cat grew hungrier by the day, she thought she could eat the butter without telling the mouse. "I'll meet with a friend of mine in the cellar", she told the mouse. "It's been a while since we last met and I could perhaps give her a little bit of the wine the house lord keeps in the barrels as a treat. Please stay back and be extra careful, should the house lord find our hideout", the cat explained. "By all means go", the mouse replied, "and bring some wine for me if there's any left".

Afternoon soon passed and the cat was yet to show up. The mouse became worried. So, he went over to the cellar, to see whether the cat was drunk or whether something had happened to her. From a distance he saw her devouring the butter from the small barrel they had bought and drinking from the house lord's red wine. "I'm the next one on the plate", thought the mouse. He then hid until the cat had eaten enough and decided to go back to the basement. "Mouse! Mouse! Where are you?", the cat shouted, but the mouse wouldn’t come out of his hideout and patiently observed her every move.

Coming to the conclusion that the mouse was nowhere to be found, the cat returned to the cellar and went straight to the barrel again. The mouse then found a trap from the ones the house lord kept setting for him, placed it at the entrance of the basement and hid again. When the cat had eaten enough and drank even more wine, she went straight towards the entrance and stepped on the trap. Her foot was caught, as a result, and she could not move.

When the house lord showed up after a few hours to get some wine from the cellar, he immediately caught the cat and kicked her out of the house for good.