The Lion's Mouse — Story, Setting & Ideas

(0 User reviews) 402

In Category - Exploration Survival Adventure Tales

Authors: Williamson, C. N. (Charles Norris), 1859-1920, Williamson, A. M. (Alice Muriel), 1869-1933 Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2007 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Adventure stories; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 81,639

Reading time 355 min

Text sections 8

The catalog record for The Lion's Mouse — Story, Setting & Ideas provides practical reading context through 81,639 words, 5 hr 55 min estimated reading time, and 8 detected text sections.

The text analysis averages about 12.5 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “Adventure stories,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #21998

A chance encounter on a train draws a hard-nosed businessman into a web of deception, stolen pearls, and a woman's desperate gamble. The narrative moves between luxury compartments and seedy rooms, driven by overheard phone calls and hidden evidence.

Editorial Edition Score 4.7/5

★★★★★ ★★★★★

Calculated from edition completeness, EPUB availability, text structure and catalogue metadata. Not a user rating.

How this score is calculated

Description quality20 pts
Title & short description10 pts
Source metadata20 pts
Text length15 pts
Chapters / structure15 pts
EPUB file integrity20 pts

Total of 100 points, scaled to a 2.5-5.0 range. Editions with an empty description or a missing EPUB file are not scored.

Edition quality

File: pg21998

Read the Text

She was young and very beautiful. He couldn't stare quite as coldly as he ought.

"What can I do for you?" was the question he asked.

He had hardly opened his mouth before she flashed into the stateroom and shut the door.

"There's a man.... I'm afraid!"

Though she was young and girlish, and spoke impulsively, there was something oddly regal about her. Princesses and girl-queens ought to be of her type; tall and very slim, with gracious, sloping shoulders and a long throat, the chin slightly lifted: pale, with great appealing violet eyes under haughty brows, and quantities of yellow-brown hair dressed in some sort of Madonna style.

"You needn't be afraid," he said. "Men aren't allowed to insult ladies in trains."

"This man hasn't insulted me in an ordinary way. But I'm in dreadful danger. American men are good to women, even strangers. You can save my life, if you will--or more than my life. But there's only one way." Her words came fast, on panting breaths, as though she had been running. The girl had stood at first, her hand on the door-knob, but losing her balance with a jerk of the train, she let herself fall into the seat. There she sat with her head thrown wearily back, her eyes appealing to the eyes that looked down at her.

A queer fancy ran through the man's brain. He imagined that a woman being tried for her life might look at the judge with just that expression. "What do you mean?" asked Sands.

He had resisted the jerk of the train, and was still on his feet. Instead of answering his question, the girl begged him to sit down.

"I can't think properly while it seems as if you were waiting to turn me out," she said.

"I hardly know how to tell you what I mean. I hardly dare," the voice went on, while he wondered. "It's a tremendous thing to ask. I can't explain ... and if I hesitate it will be too late. I don't know your name, or your character, except what I judge from your face. The way to save me is to keep me in this stateroom with the door shut, as far as Chicago."

"Good heavens! That's...." Sands was going to end his sentence with "absolutely impossible!" But he stopped in the midst. Her eyes made him stop. It was as if he were pronouncing a death sentence. He was silent for a few seconds.

"I'd have to say ... no, I could not say you were my wife, because everyone knows I've not got a wife. I'll say you are my cousin: say you've come late. I want you to have this stateroom, and I'll take another ... or a section. I--I could do that."

"Will you?" she breathed.

He said this almost sullenly. He was thinking: "Pretty smart new dodge! Neat way to get a stateroom all the way from Albuquerque to Chicago."

"I'll go out now and fix things up with the conductor," he promised. "We must settle on a story. You came on board at Albuquerque just now?"

"Yes. The last minute before the train started. I have a berth in this car. I thought I was safe, that everything was right for me. Then I saw the man ... not the one I expected; worse. He wasn't in this car, but the next. I saw him standing there. He was looking at some ladies passing through. One had on deep mourning, and a crepe veil. Perhaps he believed it was I. I turned and rushed this way. Your door was open, and you ... you looked like a real man. That's all."

"What about your baggage?"

"I have nothing. I ... was in a hurry."

"In what name did you make your reservation?"

"Miss Beverley White. White isn't my real name: Beverley is ... one of my names. I can't tell you more."

"All right. The porter will get some toilet things for my cousin whom I'm to chaperon from Albuquerque to Chicago, and who nearly missed the train owing to illness. He'll bring your meals in, as you're not able to leave your stateroom."

"That's what I'd have asked," she said. "I may trust the porter?"

"The porter knows me. Your idea is," he went on, his hand on the door, "that the man you don't want to see will try pretty hard to see you?"

"Yes. When he searches the train and can't find me (I'm sure he's begun the search already) he can't be certain I'm on board, but he won't give up easily. If the deepest gratitude----"

"I don't need consolation. Any other instructions to give before I leave you?"

Continue Reading →

The novel opens aboard the Santa Fé Limited, where Roger Sands, a man who prides himself on being 'hard as nails,' is drawn into a stranger's plea for help. The confined setting of a train stateroom becomes the first of many enclosed spaces—hotel rooms, boudoirs, telephone booths—that structure the story. The authors use these tight quarters to generate tension, as characters eavesdrop, hide, and improvise under pressure. The opening scene establishes a pattern: a woman appears at a threshold, a door closes, and a secret transaction begins.

Thresholds and Doors

The narrative repeatedly hinges on doors left open or closed. Roger's stateroom door is open when the woman appears; later, Clo listens at a telephone while a door to a chest of drawers yields a hidden pearl. The threshold between public and private space is constantly crossed. In the excerpt, Clo 'thrusting her arm underneath' a chest of drawers retrieves a pearl 'lodged against the wall at the back'—a small object that shifts the plot. The authors use these physical boundaries to mark moments of decision: entering a room, shutting a door, or letting a receiver hang loose.

The Telephone as Trap and Tool

The telephone scene in the excerpt is a set piece of misdirection. Clo impersonates a woman named Kit, improvising answers to a foreign-sounding caller. The conversation reveals key facts—a time limit of ten o'clock, a demand for 'the real docs,' and a theft of pearls—but only in fragments. The authors structure the dialogue so that Clo must 'hedge' and 'think' between responses, turning the phone into a stage for quick thinking. The receiver 'hanging loose' becomes a symbol of suspended truth, and the call itself a mechanism for the reader to piece together events alongside the protagonist.

Objects That Shift the Story

Small, tangible items drive the plot forward. The pearl Clo finds 'about the size of a small filbert' is a physical clue that Peterson is the thief. Earlier, a 'parcel with the gold seals' and 'the Queen's pearls' are listed in the chapter titles as pivotal objects. The authors treat these items as evidence that characters must interpret—Clo examines the pearl, deduces its origin, and uses it to test the caller. The narrative does not explain the objects' full significance immediately; instead, it lets them accumulate meaning through repeated appearances and characters' reactions.

Movement Between Confined Spaces

The story moves rapidly from train to hotel to apartment, each location a contained stage. The excerpt shifts from a stateroom to a 'dirty carpet' under a chest of drawers, then back to the telephone. The chapter titles suggest a journey: 'On the Way to the Car,' 'The Stone Coping,' 'On the Road to Newport.' This constant movement between rooms and vehicles creates a rhythm of pursuit and retreat. Characters are often caught between places—hovering at doors, waiting for calls, packing suitcases. The authors use these transitions to heighten uncertainty, as no setting offers permanent safety.

Readers should attend to the way the authors build suspense through incomplete information. The excerpts show that key revelations come through overheard dialogue and discovered objects, not direct narration. The structure rewards careful attention to what is left unsaid—the gaps in phone conversations, the objects hidden in corners. The novel's title hints at a power imbalance, but the excerpts suggest that the 'mouse' may be more resourceful than the 'lion' expects.

I found myself thinking about the last time I sat on a train, watching someone’s story unfold just beyond my window. This book’s quiet tension reminded me of my own old paperback copy of In the Rocky Mountains — Story, Setting & Ideas. They share that same raw, uncertain feeling—an unspoken turn waiting just ahead, a brief moment holding its breath.