"Cat and Mouse in Partnership" is an interesting little story acting as a metaphor for the original author views of people/society as a whole. In the story, there are two characters (a cat and a mouse, of course), who live together and decided to stock up on food for the coming winter. Obviously, they decide to go with a pot of fat. The problem is that they have no place to store this fat, so clearly, the best place for them to store it is under the altar at the church ("for no one dares take anything away from there"). Over the course of the story, the greedy cat decides on three separate occasions to make an excuse to leave the house and snack on the fat herself. Eventually, all that remains is an empty pot.
Jump forward to winter. They are now low on food and the mouse decides that it's time to retrieve the pot of fat. They go up to the church, and the mouse finally clues in to what's going on - but before she can do anything about it, she is promptly eaten by the cat. "And this is the way of the world", closes story.
I thought that the story was quite interesting. It cautions that people are greedy, that you shouldn't be too trusting of them, and that in certain situations it's better to remain quiet than to call somebody out. While I don't completely agree with this, it is definitely true in some cases. Overall, I liked it better than "The Frog King, or Iron Henry."
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