Some compatriots had suffered badly and succumbed, to be never seen again. The lucky ones had been found by kindly giants. The more learned mice thought that the giants had been sent by Jonathan Swift. They had been rescued in long cardboard tubes, taken outside and tipped out on to the shed paradise garden. Certain mice had recovered from their injuries and discharged themselves by climbing nimbly down the sides of the bike shed to disappear into the nearby gardens.