When the Cat's Away the Mice Will Play

The proverb supplies the caption, and the picture fills it in. A heavy bulldog in a red collar dozes on a rock at the right, a signpost reading "Adirondacks" behind him, the watchdog gone north for the summer. In the shadowed office he has left, a colony of mice runs riot: they scurry over the desk, tip the inkstand, swarm the pigeonholes and paw the papers, one clutch of them clustered around the boxes and a placard while the master's back is turned. The target is patronage and the loosely guarded public office. Let the man responsible take his holiday and the small grasping creatures move right in. A homely fable doing the work of political comment, which was Puck's specialty.