We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
THE CASE OF THE WALTZING MICE 73
listening to my sad story, he told me to come out to the zoo and he would lend me four Australian waltzing mice. He explained that they were very tame and would probably be good actors to boot.
But next day, when I got the four waltzing mice to the studio, I discovered that my troubles had just started. In the first place, the mice were the wrong color, so I had to dye them. What a job that was— trying to get each mouse to hold still while I changed its complexion. I'd rather whitewash an elephant. When finally the paint job was completed, we set up the camera and got ready to shoot. We put one mouse in a box behind the hole in the wall; on the other side of the wall we had a dummy leg, which we rubbed with cheese to attract the mouse. When we opened the door in the box, the mouse was supposed to come through the hole, look around, sniff the aroma of cheese, and run up the dummy leg. He came out of the hole all right, but instead of sniffing the cheese he began waltzing around like crazy. We tried it again. The mouse pouted and wouldn't come out of the hole. We poked sticks at him to make him come out, but all he would do was waltz. After that we tried the other three mice, but they were just as bad. Just to shoot a few feet of film showing a mouse coming out of a hole and running up a dummy leg we had to go through four days of the most frightful, monumental labor I have ever endured. It was even worse than pitching hay.
But finally we got the scene shot. It was too late to take the mice back to the zoo, so I put them in a shoe box and took them home with me. I was living with my mother in a little apartment in Brooklyn. That night I decided to leave the lid of the shoe box slightly ajar so that those valuable Australian waltzing mice would have plenty of air. Next morning the box was empty!
I was panic stricken. Those valuable mice were gone. What could I say to Dr. Ditmars? But Mother was very calm about it. "Sure and why should they run away?" she asked. "Is there anything wrong with our apartment? Maybe they are just looking for something to eat."
She put a plate of cheese on the floor and pretty soon the miss