Uh-oh. A field mouse -- through no fault of its own! -- has found itself in my apartment. This development has not gone unnoticed by Alfie, she of the big fat feet, twenty-two claws in all. I may very well be a spectator to this Gothic encounter, and not in the wild where it counts for nothing, but here in this small enclosed space in the city where Mother Nature, our pretty Dominatrix, sheds her faery colours and reveals herself to be profoundly unmoved.