A ceramicist who lives in the fictional city of Buntingdowndale in England specializes in making ceramic replicas of mice.
With his senses impaired, he inadvertently makes a mouse-like figure described as having a "fat little body like an opossum, hind feet like those of a kangaroo, the front paws of a monkey, and instead of delicate and transparent ears, these were long and much like those of a rabbit.
[2] Manxmouse leaves that encounter and has a succession of encounters with other entities, including a billibird, House Cat mother, old One-Eye the cat, Captain Hawk, a fox named Joe Reynard, a fox-hunting pack of dogs led by General Hound and called the Bumbleton Hunt, Squire Ffuffer the huntsman, Nelly the Elephant, a little girl named Wendy H. Troy, a tiger named Burra Khan, a truck driver, Mr. Smeater the pet-shop proprietor, a semi-animate wax copy of himself at Madame Tussauds, and a policeman.
But when the time comes for Manxmouse to be eaten, he takes a fighting posture and challenges Manx Cat to eat him.
The other half says, "But if the aforesaid Manxmouse instead of yielding and being swallowed shall take a firm stand in his defense and bravely and gallantly show that he means to fight for his life, then the Doom shall become inoperative, null and void and canceled.
The anime version focused on Manxmouse's friendships with the clutterbumph (named Dororon in this version and Gholis in the English dub), Captain Hawk, Wendy, and Burra Khan (whose name was re-Anglicized to Bula Khan in the English dub) and changed the climactic scene at the end; the last-minute intervention by a representative from Madame Tussaud's is replaced with an admission by Manx Cat that he had grown fond of Manxmouse and didn't really want to eat him anyway.