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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Pussy and Doggy Tales, by Edith Nesbit
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Pussy and Doggy Tales
+
+Author: Edith Nesbit
+
+Illustrator: L. Kemp-Welch
+
+Release Date: November 7, 2008 [EBook #27190]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUSSY AND DOGGY TALES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Lybarger and Emmy.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Pussy and Doggy Tales
+
+
+
+
+  Pussy
+    and Doggy
+          Tales
+
+
+       By
+    E. Nesbit
+
+  With
+    Illustrations
+          by
+    L. Kemp-Welch
+
+
+          London
+               J. M. Dent & Co.
+                      Aldine House
+                29 & 30 Bedford Street
+          1899                        W.C.
+
+
+
+
+          Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.
+          At the Ballantyne Press
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+
+Pussy Tales
+
+                                       PAGE
+          TOO CLEVER BY HALF             3
+
+          THE WHITE PERSIAN             16
+
+          A POWERFUL FRIEND             26
+
+          A SILLY QUESTION              40
+
+          THE SELFISH PUSSY             47
+
+          MEDDLESOME PUSSY              54
+
+          NINE LIVES                    62
+
+
+Doggy Tales
+
+                                       PAGE
+          TINKER                        79
+
+          RATS!                         95
+
+          THE TABLES TURNED            100
+
+          A NOBLE DOG                  108
+
+          THE DYER'S DOG               114
+
+          THE VAIN SETTER              123
+
+
+
+
+
+List of Illustrations
+
+                                                               PAGE
+  "_I may have no nose, old man, but I smell rats_"    _Frontispiece_
+
+                                                              _Page_
+  _Nurse dried the poor, dear, cruelly-used kittens a little_   11
+
+  _She was very beautiful_                                      17
+
+  _I who superintended the writing of his letters_              23
+
+  _So much better to go to sleep in front of it_                27
+
+  _Now the back of a cow is the last place where you
+       would look for a cat_                                    33
+
+  "_I don't believe a word of it_"                              43
+
+  _I was picked up in the street by a child_                    49
+
+  _The dog saw me off_                                          53
+
+  _Seeing the tea set out, I got on the table_                  59
+
+  _Sitting up, and beginning to wash the kitten's face
+      very hard indeed_                                         73
+
+  _The man's arm dragged through the window-pane,
+      and Tinker hanging on to his fingers_                     89
+
+  _It was a magnificent fight_                                 106
+
+  _He pulled her out some ten yards down the stream_           111
+
+  _Sat in the sun on the dyer's doorstep_                      117
+
+  _I took the first prize_                                     127
+
+
+
+
+Pussy Tales
+
+
+
+
+Too Clever by Half
+
+
+"TELL us a story, mother," said the youngest kitten but three.
+
+"You've heard all my stories," said the mother cat, sleepily turning
+over in the hay.
+
+"Then make a new one," said the youngest kitten, so pertly that Mrs.
+Buff boxed her ears at once--but she laughed too. Did you ever hear a
+cat laugh? People say that cats often have occasion to do it.
+
+"I do know one story," she said; "but I'm not sure that it's true,
+though it was told me by a most respectable brindled gentleman, a great
+friend of my dear mother's. He said he was a second cousin twenty-nine
+times removed of Mrs. Tabby White, the lady the story is about."
+
+"Oh, do tell it," said all the kittens, sitting up very straight and
+looking at their mother with green anxious eyes.
+
+"Very well," she said kindly; "only if you interrupt I shall leave off."
+
+So there was silence in the barn, except for Mrs. Buff's voice and the
+soft sound of pleased purring which the kittens made as they listened to
+the enchanting tale.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Mrs. Tabby White seems to have been as clever a cat as ever went
+rat-catching in a pair of soft-soled shoes. She always knew just where a
+mouse would peep out of the wainscot, and she had her soft-sharp paw on
+him before he had time to know that he was not alone in the room. She
+knew how to catch nice breakfasts for herself and her children, a trick
+I will teach you, my dears, when the spring comes; she used to lie quite
+quietly among the ivy on the wall, and then take the baby birds out of
+the nest when the grown-up birds had gone to the grub-shop. Mrs. Tabby
+White was very clever, as I said--so clever that presently she was not
+satisfied with being at the very top of the cat profession.
+
+"'Cat-people have more sense than human people, of course,' she said to
+herself; 'but still there are some things one might learn from them. I
+must watch and see how they do things.'
+
+"So next morning when the cook gave Mrs. Tabby White her breakfast, she
+noticed that cook poured the milk out of a jug into a saucer. That
+afternoon Tabby felt thirsty, but instead of putting her head into the
+jug and drinking in the usual way,--you know--she tilted up the jug to
+pour the milk out as she had seen the cook do. But cats' paws, though
+they are so strong to catch rats and mice and birds, are too weak to
+hold big brown jugs. The nasty deceitful jug fell off the dresser and
+broke itself. 'Just to spite me, I do believe,' said Mrs. Tabby. And the
+milk was all spilled.
+
+"'Now how on earth could that jug have been broken?' said cook, when she
+came in.
+
+"'It must have been the cat,' said the kitchenmaid; and she was quite
+right, but nobody believed her.
+
+"Then Mrs. Tabby White noticed that human people slept in big
+soft-cushioned white beds, instead of sleeping on the kitchen
+hearth-rug, or in the barn, like cat people. So she said to her children
+one evening--
+
+"'My dears, we are going to move into a new house.'
+
+"And the kittens were delighted, and they all went upstairs very
+quietly, and crept into the very best human bed. But unfortunately that
+bed had been got ready for a human uncle to sleep in; and when he found
+the cats there he turned them out, not gently, and threw boots at them
+till they fled, pale with fright to the ends of their pretty tails. And
+next morning he told the Mistress of the house that horrid CATS had been
+in his bed, and he vowed that he would never pass another night under a
+roof where such things were possible. Mrs. Tabby White was very
+glad--because no lady can wish for the visits of a person who throws
+boots at her. But the Mistress of the house said sadly, 'Oh, Tabby!--you
+have lost us a fortune!' And Tabby for all her cleverness didn't
+understand what the Mistress meant, but went on purring proudly, and
+wondering what clever thing she could do next. And _I_ don't know what
+it meant either, so don't you interrupt with silly questions.
+
+"'I think we ought to wear shoes,' was the next thing Mrs. Tabby White
+said; but all the human shoes were too big for her. However, there was a
+nice pair of salmon-coloured kid shoes, quite new, belonging to the
+human child's big doll--and Mrs. Tabby White put them on her eldest
+kitten's little browny feet.
+
+"'Now, Brindle,' she said (he was named after the gentleman who told me
+the story), 'you are grander than any kitten ever was before.' And at
+first Brindle felt pleased--then he tried to feel pleased--then he knew
+he wasn't pleased at all. Then the shoes began to hurt him horribly, so
+he mewed sadly; and Mrs. Tabby White boxed his ears softly--as mother
+cats do; _you_ know how I mean! But when she was asleep he took off the
+pink shoes and bit them to pieces. And Nurse slapped him for it. Poor
+Mrs. Tabby White was very miserable when she saw her son being slapped:
+for it is one thing to box your son's ears (softly, as mother cats do;
+_you_ know how I mean), and quite another to see another person do
+it--heavily, as is the way with nursemaids.
+
+"But the last and greatest effort Mrs. Tabby White made to imitate human
+manners was one Saturday night.
+
+"She saw the human child have its bath before the nursery fire, with hot
+water, pink soap, dry towels, and much fussing, and she said to herself,
+'Why should I waste hours every day in washing my children with my
+little white paws and my little pink tongue, when this human child can
+be made clean in ten minutes with this big bath. If I had more time I
+could learn to be cleverer, and I should end by being the most
+wonderful Cat in all the world.' So she sat, and watched, and waited.
+
+"When the human child was in bed and asleep, Nurse went down to her
+supper, leaving the bath to be cleared away later, for it was a hot
+supper of baked onions and toasted cheese, and if you don't go to that
+supper directly it is ready, you may as well not go at all, for it won't
+be worth eating--at least so I have heard the kitchenmaid say.
+
+"Mrs. Tabby White waited till she heard the last of Nurse's steps on the
+stairs below, and then she put both her cat-children into the tub, and
+washed them with rose-scented soap and a Turkey sponge. At first they
+thought it very good fun, but presently the soap got in their eyes and
+they were frightened of the sponge, and they cried, mewing piteously, to
+be taken out. I don't know how she could have done it, I couldn't
+have treated a kitten of _mine_ like that.
+
+"When she took them out, Mrs. Tabby tried to dry them with the soft
+towel, but somehow catskin is not so easy to dry as child-skin, and the
+little cats began to shiver, and moan: 'Oh, mother, we were so nice and
+warm, and now we are so cold! Why is it? What have we done? Were we
+naughty?'
+
+"'Drat the cats!' said Nurse, when she came up from supper, and found
+Mrs. Tabby White trying to warm her kittens against her own comfortable
+fur; 'if they haven't tumbled in the bath!'
+
+"Nurse dried the poor, dear, cruelly-used kittens a little (her hands
+were bigger than Mrs. Tabby's, so she could do it better), and put them
+in a basket with flannel, and next day Tabby-Kit was quite well, though
+rather ragged looking; but Brindle had taken a chill, and for days he
+hung between life and death. Poor Mrs. Tabby was like a wild cat with
+anxiety, and when at last Brindle was well again (or nearly, for he
+always had a slight cough after that), Mrs. Tabby White said to her
+children, 'My darlings, I was wrong, I was a silly old cat.'
+
+"'No,' purred the cat-children, 'darling mother, you were always the
+best of cats.'
+
+"Mrs. Tabby kissed them both, for of course any one would be pleased
+that her children should think her the best of cats, but in her heart
+she knew well enough how silly she had been.
+
+"Then she set about washing the kittens, not with pink soap and white
+towel this time, but with white paws and pink tongue in the good
+old-fashioned way."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Thank you, mother," said all the kittens; "what a nice horrible story."
+
+"What is the moral?" asked the youngest kitten but three.
+
+"The moral," said Mrs. Buffy, "is, 'There is such a thing as being too
+clever by half.' I'm not sure about the story being true, but I know the
+moral is. Why, it's nearly tea-time. Come along, children, and get your
+tea."
+
+So they all crept quietly away to catch the necessary mice, and the
+youngest was so afraid of being too clever by half, that she would never
+have caught a mouse at all, if her mother had not boxed her
+ears--softly, as mother cats do; you know how I mean!
+
+
+
+
+The White Persian
+
+
+I WAS a handsome, discreet, middle-aged, respectable, responsible,
+domesticated tabby cat. I was humble. I knew my place, and kept it. My
+place was the place nearest the fire in winter, or close to the sunny
+window in summer. There was nothing to trouble me--not so much as a fly
+in the cream, or an error in the leaving of the cat's meat, until some
+thoughtless person gave my master the white Persian cat.
+
+She was very beautiful in her soft, foolish, namby-pamby, blue-eyed
+way. Of course, she did not understand English, and when they called
+"Puss, puss," she only ran under the sofa, for she thought they were
+teasing her. She was mistress only of two languages--Persian and
+cat-talk.
+
+My master did not think of this. He called her "Puss"; he called her
+"Pussy"; he called her "Tittums" and "Pussy then"; and a thousand
+endearments that had formerly been lavished on me were vainly showered
+on this unresponsive stranger. But when he found she was cold to all of
+them, my master sighed.
+
+"Poor thing!" he said; "she is deaf."
+
+I sat by the bright fender, and washed my face, and sleeked my pretty
+paws, and looked on. My master gave up taking very much notice of the
+new cat. But I had a fear that he might learn Persian or cat-talk, and
+make friends with her; so I resolved that the best thing for me would be
+a complete change in the Persian's behaviour--such a change as should
+make it impossible for her ever to be friends with him again; so I said
+to her:
+
+"You wonder that our master looks coldly at you. Perhaps you don't know
+that in England a white cat is supposed to mew twenty times longer and
+to purr twenty times louder than a cat of any other colour?"
+
+"Oh, thank you so much for telling me," she said gratefully. "I didn't
+know. As it happens, I have a very good voice."
+
+And the next time she wanted her milk, she mewed in a voice you could
+have heard twenty miles away. Poor master was so astonished that he
+nearly dropped the saucer. When she had finished the milk, she jumped
+upon his knee, and he began to stroke her. She nearly gave herself a
+fit in her efforts to purr loud enough to please him. At first he was
+pleased, but when the purring got louder and louder, the poor man put
+his hands to his ears and said, "Oh dear! oh dear! this is worse than a
+whole hive of bees."
+
+Still he put her down gently, and I congratulated her on having done so
+well. She did better. She was an affectionate person, though foolish,
+and in her anxiety to do what was expected of a cat of her colour in
+England, she practised day and night.
+
+Her purr was already the loudest I have heard from any cat, but she
+fancied she could improve her mewing; and she mewed in the garden, she
+mewed in the house, she mewed at meals, she mewed at prayers, she mewed
+when she was hungry to show that she wanted food, and she mewed when
+she had had it to show her gratitude.
+
+"Poor thing," said the master to a friend who had come to see him, "she
+is so deaf she can't hear the noise she makes."
+
+Of course, I understood what he said, but she hadn't yet picked up a
+word of English; and if the master _had_ begun to learn Persian, I don't
+suppose he had got much beyond the alphabet.
+
+The Persian's mew was rather feebler that day, because she had a cold.
+
+"I don't think it's so bad," said his friend. "If you really wanted to
+get rid of her, she is very handsome; she would take a prize anywhere."
+
+"She is yours," said the master instantly; and the strange gentleman
+took her away in a basket.
+
+That evening it was I who sat on my master's knee--I who superintended
+the writing of his letters on the green-covered writing table--I who
+had all the milk that was left over from his tea.
+
+In a few days he had a letter. I read it when he laid it down; and if
+you don't believe cats can read, I can only say that it is just as easy
+to read a letter like the master's as it is to write a story like this.
+The letter begged my master to take back the fair Persian.
+
+"Her howls," the letter went on, "become worse and worse. The poor
+creature is, as you say, too deaf to be tolerated."
+
+My master wrote back instantly to say that he would rather be condemned
+to keep a dog than have the fair Persian within his doors again.
+
+Then by return of post came a pitiful letter, begging for help and
+mercy, and the friend came again to tea. I trembled lest my foreign
+rival should come back to live with me. But she didn't. The next morning
+my master took me on his knee, and, stroking me gently, said--
+
+"Ah, Tabbykins! no more Persians for us. I have sent her to my deaf
+aunt. She will be delighted with her--a most handsome present--and as
+they are both deaf, the fair Persian's shrieks will hurt nobody.
+
+"But I will have no more prize cats," he said, pouring out some cream
+for me in his own saucer. "You know how to behave; I will never have any
+cat but you."
+
+I do, and he never has.
+
+
+
+
+A Powerful Friend
+
+
+MY mother was the best of cats. She washed us kittens all over every
+morning, and at odd times during the day she would wash little bits of
+us, say an ear, or a paw, or a tail-tip, and she was very anxious about
+our education. I am afraid I gave her a great deal of trouble, for I was
+rather stout and heavy, and did not take a very active or graceful part
+in the exercises which she thought good for us.
+
+Our gymnasium was the kitchen hearth-rug. There was always a good fire
+in the grate, and it seemed to me so much better to go to sleep in
+front of it than to run round after my own tail, or even my mother's,
+though, of course, that was a great honour.
+
+As for running after the reel of cotton when the cook dropped it, or
+playing with the tassel of the blind-cord, or pretending that there were
+mice inside the paper bag which I knew to be empty, I confess that I had
+no heart or imagination for these diversions.
+
+"Of course, you know best, mother," I used to say; "but it does seem to
+me a dreadful waste of time. We might be much better employed."
+
+"How better employed?" asked my mother severely.
+
+"Why," I answered, "in eating or sleeping."
+
+At first my mother used to box my ears, and insist on my learning such
+little accomplishments as she thought necessary for my station in life.
+
+"You see," she would say, "all this playing with tails and reels and
+balls of worsted is a preparation for the real business of life."
+
+"What is that?" asked my sister.
+
+"Mouse-catching," said my mother very earnestly.
+
+"There are no mice here," I said, stretching myself.
+
+"No, but you will not always be here; and if you practise the little
+tricks I show you now with the ball of worsted and the tips of our
+tails, then, when the great hour comes, and a career is open to you, and
+you see before you the glorious prize--the MOUSE--you will be quick
+enough and clever enough to satisfy the highest needs of your nature."
+
+"And supposing we don't play with our tails and the balls of worsted?" I
+said.
+
+"Then," said my mother bitterly, "you may as well lie down for the mice
+to, run over you."
+
+Thus at first she used to try to show me how foolish it was to think of
+nothing but eating and sleeping; but after a while she turned all her
+attention to teaching my brother and sister, and they were apt pupils.
+They despised nothing small enough to be moved by their paws, which
+could give them an opportunity of practising. They did not mind making
+themselves ridiculous--a thing which has been always impossible with me.
+I have seen Tabby, my sister, in the garden, playing with dead leaves,
+as excited and pleased as though they had been the birds which she
+foolishly pretended that they were.
+
+I thought her very silly then, but I lived to wish that I had taken half
+as much trouble with my lessons as she did with hers. My mother was very
+pleased with her, especially after she caught the starlings. This was a
+piece of cleverness which my sister invented and carried through
+entirely out of her own head. She made friends with one of the cows at
+the farm near us, and used to go into the cowhouse and jump on the cow's
+back. Then when the cow was sent out into the field to get her grassy
+breakfast, my sister used to go with her, riding on her back.
+
+Now birds are always very much on the look-out for cats, and, if they
+can help it, never allow one of us to come within half-a-dozen yards of
+them without taking to those silly wings of theirs. I never could see
+why birds should have wings--so unnecessary.
+
+But birds are not afraid of cows, for cows are very poor sportsmen, and
+never care to kill and eat anything.
+
+Now the back of a cow is the last place where you would think of looking
+for a cat; so when the starlings saw the cow coming, they didn't think
+it worth while to use their wings, and when the cow was quite close to
+the birds--beautiful, fat, delightful birds--- my sister used to pick
+out with her eye the fattest starling, and then leap suddenly from the
+cow's back on to her prey. She never missed.
+
+"I have never known," said my poor mother with tears of pride in her
+green eyes--"I have never known a cat do anything so clever."
+
+"It's all your doing, mother dear," said my sister prettily; "if you
+hadn't taught me so well when I was little, I should never have thought
+of it." And they kissed each other affectionately.
+
+I showed my claws and growled. My mother shook her tabby head.
+
+"O Buff," she said, "if you had only been willing to learn when you were
+little, you might have been as clever as your sister, instead of
+being the great anxiety you are to me."
+
+"And why am I an anxiety?" I said, ruffling up my fur and my tail, for I
+was very angry.
+
+"Because you are useless," she said, "and not particularly handsome; and
+when a cat is useless and not particularly handsome, they sometimes----"
+
+"What?" I said, turning pale to the ends of my ears.
+
+"They sometimes drown it, Buff," she said in a whisper, and turned away
+to hide her feelings.
+
+Judge of my own next day when they came into the kitchen and took me up
+and put me into a basket. I knew all about drowning. These tales of
+horror are told at twilight time in all cat nurseries, and I knew that
+if three large stones were put into the basket with me, I might
+consider my fate sealed.
+
+It was very uncomfortable in the basket. They carried me upside-down
+part of the way, and it was draughty and hard; but, so far, there were
+no stones. When they took off the lid of the basket, I found myself
+under the shade of a huge moving mountain, that seemed about to fall and
+crush me. It was an elephant.
+
+I found that the people where my mother lived had given me to the cook,
+who had given me to her cousin, who was engaged to be married to a young
+man whose brother-in-law was the elephant's keeper, and so I found
+myself in the elephant's house.
+
+There was no milk for me--no heads and tails of fish--no scraps of
+meat--no delicious unforeseen morsels of butter.
+
+The elephant was very kind to me. He had once had a friend exactly like
+me, he explained, but had unfortunately walked upon him, and now I had
+come to fill the vacant place in his large heart.
+
+I resolved at once that he should not walk upon me; but in order to
+insure this, I was compelled to enter upon a more active existence than
+I had ever known.
+
+When I asked what I was expected to eat, he said--
+
+"Mice, I suppose; or you can have some of my buns if you like. You might
+like them at first, but you will soon get tired of them."
+
+But I couldn't eat buns. I was never, from a kitten, fond of such
+things. I got very hungry. Again and again the mice rushed through the
+straw, and I, heavily, helplessly, in my unpractised way, rushed after
+them. At first the elephant laughed heartily at my inexpertness; but
+when he saw how hungry and wretched I was, he said--
+
+"They won't give you any milk, and if they find you don't catch the mice
+they will take you away from me. Now you are a nice little cat, and I
+don't want to part with you. We must try and arrange something."
+
+Then the great thought of my life came to me.
+
+"You walked on the other cat," I said.
+
+"What?" he trumpeted in a voice of thunder.
+
+"I beg your pardon," I said hastily; "I didn't mean to hurt your
+feelings"--and, indeed, I could not have imagined that an elephant would
+have been so thin-skinned "but a great idea has come to me. Why
+shouldn't you walk on mice--not too hard, but just so that I could eat
+them afterwards?"
+
+"Well," said the elephant, showing his long tusks in a smile, "you are
+not very handsome, and you are not very brisk; but you certainly have
+brains, my dear."
+
+He dropped his great foot as he spoke. When he lifted it, there lay a
+mouse. I had an excellent supper; and before the week's end I heard the
+keeper say, "This cat has certainly done the trick. She has kept the
+mice down. We must keep her."
+
+They have kept me. They even go so far as to allow me to moisten my mice
+with milk.
+
+There is no moral to this story, except that you should do as you are
+told, and learn everything you can while you are young. It is true that
+I get on very well without having done so, but then you may not have my
+good luck. It is not every cat who can get an elephant to catch her mice
+for her.
+
+
+
+
+A Silly Question
+
+
+"HOW do you come to be white, when all your brothers are tabby, my
+dear?" Dolly asked her kitten. As she spoke, she took it away from the
+ball it was playing with, and held it up and looked in its face as Alice
+did with the Red Queen.
+
+"I'll tell you, if you'll keep it a secret, and not hold me so tight,"
+the kitten answered.
+
+Dolly was not surprised to hear the kitten speak, for she had read her
+fairy books, as all good children should, and she knew that all
+creatures answer if one only speaks to them properly. So she held the
+kitten more comfortably and the tale began.
+
+"You must know, my dear Dolly," the kitten began--and Dolly thought it
+dreadfully familiar--"you must know that when we were very small we all
+set out to seek our fortunes."
+
+"Why," interrupted Dolly, "you were all born and brought up in our barn!
+I used to see you every day."
+
+"Quite so," said the kitten; "we sought our fortune every night, and it
+turned out to be mice, mostly. Well, one night I was seeking mine, when
+I came to a hole in the door that I had never noticed before. I crept
+through it, and found myself in a beautiful large room. It smelt
+delicious. There was cheese there, and fish, and cream, and mice, and
+milk. It was the most lovely room you can think of."
+
+"There's no such room----" began Dolly.
+
+"Did I say there was?" asked the kitten. "I only said I found myself
+there. Well, I stayed there some time. It was the happiest hour of my
+life. But, as I was washing my face after one of the most delicious
+herring's heads you ever tasted, I noticed that on nails all round the
+room were hung skins--and they were cat skins," it added slowly. "Well
+may you tremble!"
+
+Dolly hadn't trembled. She had only shaken the kitten to make it speak
+faster.
+
+"Well, I stood there rooted to the ground with horror; and then came a
+sort of horrible scramble-rush, and a barking and squeaking, and a
+terrible monster stood before me. It was something like a dog and
+something like a broom, something like being thrown out of the larder by
+cook--I can't describe it. It caught me up, and in less than a moment
+it had hung my tabby skin on a nail behind the door.
+
+"I crept out of that lovely fairyland a cat without a skin. And that's
+how I came to be white."
+
+"I don't quite see----" began Dolly.
+
+"No? Why, what would your mother do if some one took off your dress, and
+hung it on a nail where she could not get it?"
+
+"Buy me another, I suppose."
+
+"Exactly. But when my mother took me to the cat-skin shop, they were,
+unfortunately, quite out of tabby dresses in my size, so I had to have a
+white one."
+
+"I don't believe a word of it," said Dolly.
+
+"No? Well, I'm sure it's as good a story as you could expect in answer
+to such a silly question."
+
+"But you were always----"
+
+"Oh, well!" said the kitten, showing its claws, "if you know more about
+it than I do, of course there's no more to be said. Perhaps you could
+tell me why your hair is brown?"
+
+"I was born so, I believe," said Dolly gently.
+
+The kitten put its nose in the air.
+
+"You've got no imagination," it said.
+
+"But, Kitty, really and truly, without pretending, you _were_ born
+white, you know."
+
+"If you know all about it, why did you ask me? At any rate, you can't
+expect me to remember whether I was born white or not. I was too young
+to notice such things."
+
+"Now you are in fun," said poor Dolly, bewildered.
+
+The kitten bristled with indignation.
+
+"What! you really don't believe me? I'll never speak to you again," it
+said. And it never has.
+
+
+
+
+
+The Selfish Pussy
+
+
+"YES," said the tortoiseshell cat to the grey one, as she thoughtfully
+washed her left ear, "I have lived in a great many families. You see,
+it's not every trade that deserves to have a cat about the place. My
+first master was a shoemaker, and I lived with him happily enough, until
+one morning in winter, when I found the wicked man sewing strips of--let
+me whisper--_cat's fur_ on a pair of lady's slippers!
+
+"I mewed as I saw it, and he, thinking I wanted milk, put down his work
+to get me some, for he was fond enough of me. I drank the milk, and then
+I ran away. I could not live with such a man.
+
+"My next home was in a garret, with a half-starved musician who made
+violins. A violin is a musical instrument that miauls when you touch it
+just as we cats do, and it was amusing to live with a man who could make
+things with voices like my own. He was very poor, and often had not
+enough to eat, but he always got me my cat's-meat; and when there was no
+fire on, he nursed me to keep me warm. But one day I learned, from the
+talk of one of his friends (a man as lean as himself) who came to see
+him, that the strings of the violins were taken from the bodies of dead
+cats. No wonder the voices were like my brothers' voices, since they
+were stolen from my brothers' bodies. He might take my own voice some
+day.
+
+"So next day, after the cat's-meat man had called, I walked quietly out,
+and never saw that bad violin-maker again.
+
+"I was picked up in the street by a child, who took me home to her
+mother's house. They were rich folk; they had curtains, and cushions,
+and couches, and they did very little but nurse me, or sometimes, not
+wishing to hurt his feelings, the Italian greyhound. But they liked _me_
+best, of course. They were a noble family; and I should have been living
+with them still, but one year, when they went to the seaside, they
+forgot to provide for my board and lodging, and I had to go into trade
+again.
+
+"'Milk ahoy! milk ahoy!' I heard that well-known music as I sat lonely
+on the doorstep of the deserted mansion in the Square. The milkman
+looked lonely too; so I thought it would be only kind to go home with
+him. I did. He was a very well-meaning man, but his tastes were low. He
+took skim milk in his tea, and gave me the same. Of course, after that,
+I could not stay another hour under his roof.
+
+"I tried two or three other houses, and I could have been happy with a
+very nice butcher who kept a corner shop, but he kept a dog also, a dog
+that no cat in her senses would live in the same street with; so I came
+away--rather hurriedly, I remember--and the dog saw me off. Now I live
+with a worker in silver, and I have cream every day; and when he makes a
+cream-jug, and I remember what will be put in it some day, I lick my
+lips, and think what a happy cat I am to live with such a good man.
+Where do you live?"
+
+"With a poor widow, in an attic. I never have enough to eat." And,
+indeed, the grey cat was thin.
+
+"Why do you stay with her?"
+
+"Because I love her," said the grey cat.
+
+"Love!" replied the tortoiseshell cat.
+
+"Nonsense! I never heard of such a thing."
+
+"Poor puss!" said the parrot in the window. The grey cat thought it was
+speaking to the tortoiseshell, and the tortoiseshell was certain it
+meant the grey. Which do _you_ think it meant?
+
+
+
+
+Meddlesome Pussy
+
+
+I WAS separated from my mother at a very early age, and sent out into
+the world alone, long before I had had time to learn to say "please" and
+"thank you," and to shut the door after me, and little things like that.
+One of the things I had not learned to understand was the difference
+between milk in a saucer on the floor, and milk in a jug on the table.
+Other cats tell me there is a difference, but I can't see it. The
+difference is not in the taste of the milk--that is precisely the same.
+
+It is not so easy to get the milk out of a jug, and I should have
+thought some credit would attach to a cat who performed so clever a
+feat. The world, my dear, thinks otherwise. This difference of opinion
+has, through life, been a fruitful source of sorrow to me. I cannot tell
+you how much I have suffered for it. The first occasion I remember was a
+beautiful day in June, when the sun shone, and all the world looked
+fair. I was destined to remember that day.
+
+The fishmonger (talk of statues to heroes! I would raise one to that
+noble man!)--the fishmonger, I say, brought his usual little present to
+_me_. I let the cook take it and prepare it for my eating. I am always
+generous enough to permit the family to be served first--and then I have
+my dinner quietly at the back door.
+
+Well, he had brought the salmon, and I followed the cook in, to see
+that it wasn't put where those dogs could get it; and then, the
+dining-room door being opened, I walked in. The breakfast things were
+lying littered about, and on the tea-tray was a jug.
+
+Of course, I walked across the table, and looked into the jug; there was
+milk in it.
+
+It was a sensible, wide-mouthed jug, and I should have been quite able
+to make a comfortable breakfast, if some clumsy, careless servant hadn't
+rushed into the room, crying "Shoo! scat!"
+
+This startled me, of course. I am very sensitive. I started, the jug
+went over, and the milk ran on to the cloth, and down on the new carpet.
+You will hardly believe it, but that servant, to conceal her own
+carelessness, beat me with a feather brush, and threw me out of the back
+door; and cook, who was always a heartless person, though stout, gave
+me no dinner. Ah! if my fishmonger had only known that I never tasted
+his beautiful present, after all!
+
+But though I admired him so much, I could not talk to him. I never, from
+a kitten, could speak any foreign language fluently. So he never knew.
+
+My next misadventure was on an afternoon when the family expected
+company, and the best china was set out. Why "best"? Why should a
+saucer, all blue and gold and red, with a crown on the back, be better
+than a white one with mauve blobs on it? I never could see. Milk tastes
+equally well from both.
+
+I went into the drawing-room before the guests arrived--just to be sure
+that everything was as I could wish--and, seeing the tea set out, I got
+on the table, as usual, to see whether there was anything in the
+saucers. There was not, but in the best milk-jug there was--CREAM!
+
+The neck of the best milk-jug was narrow. I could not get my head in, so
+I turned it over with my paw. It fell with a crash, and I paused a
+moment--these little shocks always upset me. All was still--I began to
+lap. Oh! that cream! I shall never forget it!
+
+Then came a rush, and the fatal cry of "Shoo! scat!"--always presaging
+disaster. I saw the door open, and, by an instinct I cannot explain, I
+leaped from the table. In my hurry, my foot caught in the handle of the
+silver tray. We fell together--neither the tray nor I was hurt--but the
+best china!!!
+
+I picked myself up, and looked about me. The family had come in. I read
+in their faces that their servant's unlucky interruption-of my meal had
+destroyed what was dearer to them than life--than _my_ life, at any
+rate. I fled. I went out homeless and hopeless into the golden
+afternoon.
+
+I live now with a Saint--a maiden lady, who takes condensed milk in her
+own tea, and buys me two-pennyworth of cream night and morning.
+
+And cat's meat, too!
+
+And the glorious fishmonger still leaves his offerings at my door.
+
+
+
+
+Nine Lives
+
+
+"MOTHER," said the yellow kitten, "is it true that we cats have nine
+lives?"
+
+"Quite, my dear," the brindled cat replied. She was a very handsome cat,
+and in very comfortable circumstances. She sat on a warm Turkey carpet,
+and wore a blue satin ribbon round her neck. "I am in the ninth life
+myself," she said.
+
+"Have you lived all your lives here?"
+
+"Oh dear, no!"
+
+"Were you here," the white kitten asked, in a sleepy voice, "when the
+Turkey carpet was born? Rover says it is only a few months old."
+
+"No," said the mother, "I was not. Indeed, it was partly the softness of
+that carpet that made me come and live here."
+
+"Where did you live before?" the black kitten said.
+
+A dreamy look came into the brindled cat's eyes.
+
+"In many strange places," she answered slowly; adding more briskly, "and
+if you will be good kittens, I will tell you all about them. Goldie!
+come down from that stool, and sit down like a good kitten. Sweep! leave
+off sharpening your claws on the furniture; _that_ always ends in
+trouble and punishment. Snowball! you're asleep again! Oh, well; if
+you'd rather sleep than hear a story----"
+
+Snowball shook herself awake, and the others sat down close to their
+mother with their tails arranged neatly beside them, and waited for the
+story.
+
+"I was born," said the brindled cat, "in a barn."
+
+"What is a barn?" asked the black kitten.
+
+"A barn is like a house, but there is only one room, and no carpets,
+only straw."
+
+"I should like that," said the yellow kitten, who often played among the
+straw in the big box which brought groceries from the Stores.
+
+"I liked it well enough when I was your age," said the mother
+indulgently, "but a barn is not at all a genteel place to be born in. My
+mother had had a little unpleasantness with the family she lived with,
+and, of course, she was too proud to stay on after that. And so she
+left them, and went to live in the barn. It wasn't at all the sort of
+life she had been accustomed to."
+
+"What was the unpleasantness?" Sweep asked.
+
+"Well, it was about some cream which the woman of the house wanted for
+her tea. She should have said so. Of course, my mother would not have
+taken it if she had had any idea that any one else wanted it. She was
+always most unselfish."
+
+"What is tea?"
+
+"A kind of brown milk--very nasty indeed, and very bad for you. Well, I
+lived with my brothers and sisters very happily for some months, for I
+was too young to know how vulgar it was to live in a barn and play with
+straw."
+
+"What is vulgar, mother?"
+
+"Dear, dear; how you do ask questions," said the brindled cat, beginning
+to look worried. "Vulgar is being like everybody else."
+
+"But does everybody else live in a barn?"
+
+"No; nobody does who is respectable. Vulgar really means--not like
+respectable cats."
+
+"Oh!" said the black kitten and the yellow, trying to look as if they
+understood. But the white one did not say anything, because it had gone
+to sleep again.
+
+"Well," the mother went on, "after a while they took me to live in the
+farm-house. And I should have liked it well enough, only they had a low
+habit of locking up the dairy and the pantry. Well, it would be tiresome
+to go into the whole story; however, I soon finished my life at the
+farm-house and went to live in the stable. It was very pleasant there.
+Horses are excellent company. That was my third life. My fourth was at
+the miller's. He came one day to buy some corn; he saw me, and admired
+me--as, indeed, every one has always done. He and the farmer were
+disputing about the price of the corn, and at last the miller said--
+
+"'Look here; you shall have your price if you'll throw me that cat into
+the bargain.'"
+
+The kittens all shuddered. "What is a bargain? Is it like a pond? And
+were you thrown in?"
+
+"I was thrown in, I believe. But a bargain is not like a pond; though I
+heard the two men talk of 'wetting' the bargain. But I suppose they did
+not do it, for I arrived at the mill quite dry. That was a very pleasant
+life--full of mice!"
+
+"Who was full of mice?" asked the white kitten, waking up for a moment.
+
+"I was," said the mother sharply; "and I should have stayed in the mill
+for ever, but the miller had another cat sent him by his sister.
+
+"However, he gave me away to a man who worked a barge up and down the
+river. I suppose he thought he should like to see me again sometimes as
+the barge passed by.
+
+"Life in a barge is very exciting. There are such lots of rats, some of
+them as big as you kittens. I got quite clever at catching them, though
+sometimes they made a very good fight for it. I used to have plenty of
+milk, and I slept with the bargee in his warm little bunk, and of nights
+I sat and toasted myself in front of his fire in the small, cosy cabin.
+He was very fond of me, and used to talk to me a great deal. It is so
+lonely on a barge that you are glad of a little conversation. He was
+very kind to me, and I was very grieved when he married a lady who
+didn't like cats, and who chased me out of the barge with a barge-pole."
+
+"What is a barge-pole?" the yellow kitten asked lazily.
+
+"The only leg a barge has. I ran away into the woods, and there I lived
+on birds and rabbits."
+
+"What are rabbits?"
+
+"Something like cats with long ears; very wholesome and nutritious. And
+I should have liked my sixth life very much, but for the keeper. No,
+don't interrupt to ask what a keeper is. He is a man who, when he meets
+a cat or a rabbit, points a gun at it, and says 'Bang!' so loud that you
+die of fright."
+
+"How horrible!" said all the kittens.
+
+"I was looking out for my seventh life, and also for the gamekeeper, and
+was sitting by the river with both eyes and both ears open, when a
+little girl came by--a nice little girl in a checked pinafore.
+
+"She stopped when she saw me, and called--'Pussy! pussy!' So I went very
+slowly to her, and rubbed myself against her legs. Then she picked me up
+and carried me home in the checked pinafore. My seventh life was spent
+in a clean little cottage with this little girl and her mother. She was
+very fond of me, and I was as fond of her as a cat can be of a human
+being. Of course, we are never so _unreasonably_ fond of them as they
+are of us."
+
+"Why not?" asked the yellow kitten, who was young and affectionate.
+
+"Because they're only human beings, and we are Cats," returned the
+mother, turning her large, calm green eyes on Goldie, who said, "Oh!"
+and no more.
+
+"Well, what happened then?" asked the black kitten, catching its
+mother's eye.
+
+"Well, one day the little girl put me into a basket, and carried me out.
+I was always a fine figure of a cat, and I must have been a good weight
+to carry. Several times she opened the basket to kiss and stroke me. The
+last time she did it we were in a room where a sick girl lay on a bed.
+
+"'I did not know what to bring you for your birthday,' said my little
+girl, 'so I've brought you my dear pussy.'
+
+"The sick girl's eyes sparkled with delight. She took me in her arms and
+stroked me. And though I do not like sick people, I felt flattered and
+pleased. But I only stayed a very little time with her."
+
+"Why?" asked all the kittens at once.
+
+"Because----but no; that story's too sad for you children; I will tell
+it you when you're older."
+
+"But that only makes eight lives," said Sweep, who had been counting on
+his claws, "and you said you had nine. Which was the ninth?"
+
+"Why, _this_, you silly child," said the brindled pussy, sitting up, and
+beginning to wash the kitten's face very hard indeed. "And as it's my
+last life, I must be very careful of it. That's why I'm so particular
+about what I eat and drink, and why I make a point of sleeping so many
+hours a-day. But it's your _first_ life, Snowball, and I can't have you
+wasting it all in sleep. Go and catch a mouse at once."
+
+"Yes, mamma," said Snowball, and went to sleep again immediately.
+
+"Ah!" said Mrs. Brindle, "I'll wash you next. That'll make you wake up,
+my dear."
+
+"Snowball's always sleepy," said the yellow kitten, stretching itself.
+"But, mamma dear, she doesn't care for history, and yours was a very
+long tale."
+
+"You can't have too much of a good thing," said the mother, looking down
+at her long brindled tail. "If it's a good tail, the longer it is the
+better."
+
+
+
+
+Doggy Tales
+
+
+
+
+Tinker
+
+
+MY name is Stumps, and my mistress is rather a nice little girl; but she
+has her faults, like most people. I myself, as it happens, am
+wonderfully free from faults. Among my mistress's faults is what I may
+call a lack of dignity, joined to a desire to make other people
+undignified too.
+
+You will hardly believe that, before I had belonged to her a month, she
+had made me learn to dance and to jump. I am a very respectable
+dachshund, of cobby build, and jumping is the very last exercise I
+should have taken to of my own accord. But when Miss Daisy said, "Now
+jump, Stumps; there's a darling!" and held out her little arms, I could
+not well refuse. For, after all, the child is my mistress.
+
+I never could understand why the cat was not taught to dance. It seemed
+to me very hard that, when I was having those long, miserable lessons,
+the cat should be allowed to sit down doing nothing but smile at my
+misfortunes. Trap always said we ought to feel honoured by being taught,
+and the reason why Pussy wasn't asked to learn was because she was so
+dreadfully stupid, and had no brains for anything but the pleasures of
+the chase and the cares of a family; but I didn't think that could be
+the reason, because the doll was _taught_ to dance, though she never
+_learned_, and I am sure _she_ was stupid enough.
+
+Another thing which Miss Daisy taught me to do was to beg; and the
+action fills me with shame and pain every time I perform it, and as the
+years go on I hate it more and more.
+
+For a stout, middle-aged dog, the action is absurd and degrading. Yet,
+such is the force of habit, that I go through the performance now quite
+naturally whenever I want anything. Trap does it too, and says what does
+it matter? but then he has no judgment, and, besides, he's thin.
+
+But one of the most thoughtless things my little mistress ever did was
+one day last summer when she was out without me. I chose to stay at home
+because it was very hot, and I knew that the roads would be dusty; and
+she was only going down to the village shop, where no one ever thinks
+of offering a dog anything to drink. If she had been going to the farm,
+I should have gone with her, because the lady there shows proper
+attention to visitors, and always sets down a nice dish of milk for us
+dogs. Besides, I was a little unwell just then; the family had had duck
+for dinner, and I always feel a little faint after duck. All our family
+do. So I stayed at home. Well, Miss Daisy had gone out with only Trap
+and her hoop. I wish I had been there, for Trap is far too easy-going,
+and a hoop never gives any advice worth listening to. Trap told me all
+about it as well as he could. Trap can't tell a story very well, poor
+fellow!
+
+It seems that, as Miss Daisy went across the village green, she saw a
+crowd of children running after a dog with--I hardly like to mention
+such a thing--a tin saucepan tied to his tail! The dog bolted into the
+empty dog-kennel by the blacksmith's shop, and stayed there, growling.
+
+"Go away, bad children," said Miss Daisy; "how dare you treat a poor
+dear doggie so?"
+
+The children wouldn't go away at first. "Very well," said Miss Daisy; "I
+shall tell Trap what I think of you all."
+
+Then she whispered to Trap, and he began to growl so fiercely that the
+children dared not come nearer. Any one can growl. Presently the
+children got tired of listening to him, and went away. Then Miss Daisy
+coaxed the unpleasant, tin-tailed creature out of the kennel, and untied
+the string, and took off the pan. Then, if you'll believe a dog of my
+character (and of course you must), she carried that low dog home in her
+arms, and washed him, and set him down to eat out of the same plate as
+Trap and myself! Trap was friends with him directly--some people have
+no spirit--but I hope I know my duty to myself too well for that. I
+snarled at the base intruder till he was quite ashamed of himself. I
+knew from the first that he'd be taught jumping and begging, and things
+like that. I hate those things myself, but that's no reason why every
+low dog should be taught them. Miss Daisy called him Tinker, because he
+once carried a tin pan about with him, and she tried very hard to make
+me friendly to him; but I can choose my own friends, I hope.
+
+Every one made a great fuss about one thing he did, but actually it was
+nothing but biting; and if biting isn't natural to a dog, I should like
+to know what is; and why people should be praised and petted, and have
+new collars, and everybody else's share of the bones, only for doing
+what is quite natural to them, I have never been able to comprehend.
+Besides, barking is as good as biting, any day, and I'm sure I barked
+enough, though it wasn't my business.
+
+Miss Daisy had gone away to stay with her cousins in London, and she had
+taken Trap with her. Why she should have taken him instead of me is a
+matter on which I can offer no opinion. If my opinion had been asked, I
+should have said that I thought it more suitable for her to have a heavy
+middle-aged dog of good manners than a harum-scarum young stripling like
+Trap. Trap told me afterwards that he thought the reason he was taken
+was because Miss Daisy would have had more to pay for the dog-ticket of
+such a heavy dog as I am; but I can't believe that dogs are charged for
+by the weight, like butter. As I was saying, Miss Daisy took Trap with
+her, and also her father and mother; and Tinker and I were left to take
+care of the servants. We had a very agreeable time, though I confess
+that I missed Miss Daisy more than I would have believed possible. But
+there was more to eat in the kitchen than usual, and the servants often
+left things on the table when they went out to take in the milk or to
+chat with the gardeners; and if people leave things on tables, they have
+only themselves to thank for whatever happens.
+
+There was a young man who wore a fur cap, and who used to call with
+fish; and I was more surprised than I care to own when I met him walking
+out with cook one Sunday afternoon, for I thought she had a soul above
+fish; yet when the servants began to ask this young man to tea in the
+kitchen, I thought, of course, it must be all right, but Tinker would do
+nothing but growl the whole time the young man was there; so that at
+last cook had to lock us up in the butler's pantry till the young man
+was gone. _I_ had not growled, but I was locked in too. The world is
+full of injustice and ingratitude.
+
+Now one night, when the servants went to bed, Tinker and I lay down in
+our baskets under the hall table as usual; but Tinker was dreadfully
+restless, which must have been only an accident, because he said himself
+he didn't know what was the matter with him; and he would not go to
+sleep, but kept walking up and down as if he were going to hide a bone
+and couldn't find a good place for it.
+
+"Do lie down, for goodness' sake, Tinker," I said, "and go to sleep. Any
+one can see you have not been brought up in a house where regular hours
+are kept."
+
+"I can't go to sleep; I don't know what's the matter with me," he said
+gloomily.
+
+Well, I tried to go to sleep myself, and I think I must almost have
+dropped off, when I heard a scrape-scraping from the butler's pantry. I
+wasn't going to bark. It wasn't my business. I have often heard Miss
+Daisy's relations say that I was no house-dog. Still, I think Tinker
+ought to have barked then, but he didn't: only just pricked his ears and
+his tail; and he waited, and the scraping went on.
+
+Then Tinker said to me--"Don't you make a noise, for your life; I am
+going to see what it is;" and he trotted softly into the butler's
+pantry. It was rather dark, but you know we dogs can see as well as cats
+in the dark, although they do make such a fuss about it, and declare
+that they are the only creatures who can.
+
+There was a man outside the window, and I tapped Tinker with my tail to
+show him that he ought to bark, but he never moved. The man had been
+scraping and scraping till he had got out one of the window-panes. It
+was a very little window-pane, only just big enough for his hand to go
+through; and the man took out the window-pane and put his hand through,
+making a long arm to get at the fastening of the window; and just as he
+was going to undo the hasp, Tinker made a spring on to the window-ledge,
+and he caught the man's hand in his mouth, and the man gave a push, and
+Tinker fell off the window-ledge, but he took the man's hand with him;
+and there was the man's arm dragged through the window-pane, and Tinker
+hanging on to his fingers.
+
+The man broke some more panes and tried to get his other hand through,
+and if he had he would have done for Tinker, but he could not manage it;
+and now I thought "This is the time to bark," and I barked. I barked my
+best, I barked nobly, though I am not a house-dog, and I don't think
+it's my business.
+
+In less than a minute down came the gardener and the under-gardener: and
+Tinker was still holding on, and they took the man, and he was marched
+off to prison, and it turned out to be the man in the fur cap. But
+though they made fuss enough about Tinker's share in the business, you
+may be sure it didn't make me think much more of him.
+
+I should never have had anything to say to him but for one thing. Early
+one morning we three dogs--it's all over long ago, and I hope I can be
+generous and let bygones be bygones; he is one of _us_ now--went out for
+a run in the paddock by the wood, and while Trap and I were trotting up
+and down chatting about the weather, that Tinker dog bolted into the
+wood, and in less than a minute came out with a rabbit.
+
+I saw at once that he could never get it eaten before Miss Daisy came
+out, and I knew that, if he were found with it, his sufferings would be
+awful. So I helped him to eat it. I know my duty to a fellow-creature, I
+trust. It was a very young rabbit, and tender. Not too much fur. Fur
+gets in your throat, and spoils your teeth, besides. We had just
+finished it when my mistress came out. Trap would not eat a bit, even to
+help Tinker out of his scrape, but _I_ have a kind heart.
+
+Well, after that I thought I might as well consent to be friends with
+Tinker, in spite of his low breeding. You see, I had helped him out of a
+dreadful scrape, and one always feels kindly to people one has helped.
+He has caught several more rabbits since then, and I have always stood
+by him on those occasions, and I always mean to. I am not one to turn my
+back on a friend, I believe.
+
+So now he has a collar like ours, and I hardly feel degraded at all when
+I sit opposite to him at the doll's tea-parties.
+
+
+
+
+Rats!
+
+
+"HE has no nose," said my master; "he is a handsome dog, but he has no
+nose."
+
+This annoyed me very much, for I have a nose--a very long, sharp, black
+nose. I wear tan boots and gloves, and my coat is a beautiful shiny
+black.
+
+I am a Manchester terrier, and I fulfil the old instructions for such
+dogs. I am
+
+          _Neckčd like a drakč,_
+          _Headed like a snakč,_
+          _Tailed like a ratte,_
+          _And footed like a catte._
+
+And then they said I had no nose.
+
+But Kerry explained to me that my master did not mean to find fault with
+the shape of my nose, but that what he wanted to be understood was that
+I had no nose for smelling rats. Kerry has, and he is ridiculously vain
+of this accomplishment.
+
+"And you have no nose, you know, old boy," said Kerry; "why, you would
+let the rats run all over you and never know it."
+
+I turned up my nose--my beautiful, pointed, handsome nose--and walked
+away without a word.
+
+A few weeks afterwards my master brought home with him some white rats.
+Kerry was out at the time, but my master showed me the rats through the
+bars of their cage. He also showed me a boot and a stick. Although I
+have no nose, I was clever enough to put two and two together. Did I
+mention that there were two rats?
+
+We were not allowed to go in the study, either of us, and my master put
+the rats there in their cage on the table.
+
+That night, when everybody had gone to bed, I said to Kerry, "I may have
+no nose, old man, but I smell rats."
+
+Kerry sniffed contemptuously.
+
+"You!" said he, curling himself round in his basket; "I don't believe
+you could smell an elephant if there were one in the dresser drawer."
+
+I kept my temper. "I am not feeling very well, Kerry," I said gently,
+"or I would go and see myself. But I am sure there _are_ rats; I smell
+them plainly; they seem to be in the study."
+
+"Go to sleep," he said; "you're dreaming, old man."
+
+"Why don't you go and see?" I said. "If I didn't feel so very faint, I
+would go myself."
+
+Kerry got out of his basket reluctantly. "I suppose I ought to go, if
+you are quite certain," he said; and he went.
+
+In less than a minute he returned to the kitchen, trembling all over
+with excitement.
+
+"Chappie!" he said; "Chappie!"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"There _are_ rats," he whispered hoarsely; "there are rats in the
+study."
+
+"Did you go in?" I asked.
+
+"No, you know we're forbidden to go in, but I smelt them quite plainly.
+I can't smell them at all here," he said regretfully. "What a nose you
+have got, after all, Chappie!"
+
+"What are you going to do, Kerry?" I asked.
+
+"Why, nothing," he said; "we mustn't go in the study."
+
+"Oh," I said, "rules weren't made for great occasions like this; it's
+your business to kill rats wherever they are."
+
+And that misguided wire-haired person went up. He got them out of the
+cage, and killed them.
+
+The next morning, when the master came down, he thrashed Kerry within an
+inch of his life. He knows I don't touch rats; and, besides, I was so
+unwell that nobody could have suspected me. And I explained to Kerry
+that, good as my nose is, I couldn't possibly tell by the smell that the
+rats were white, and, therefore, sacred. It was not worth while to
+mention that I had seen them before.
+
+Kerry looks up to me now as a dog with a nose, and I am much happier
+than formerly. But Kerry is not nearly so keen on rats now. I thought
+somehow he wouldn't be.
+
+
+
+
+The Tables Turned
+
+
+WE knew it was a dog, directly the basket was set down in the hall. We
+heard it moving about inside. We sniffed all round. We asked it why it
+didn't come out (the basket was tightly tied up with string). "Are you
+having a good time in there?" said Roy. "Can't you show your face?" said
+I. "He's ashamed of it," said Roy, waving his long bushy tail. Then he
+growled a little, and the dog inside growled too; and then, as Roy had
+an appointment with the butcher at his own back door, I went out to see
+him home.
+
+"I am so sorry I am going away for Christmas with my master," he said
+when we parted; "but you must introduce that new dog to me when I come
+home. We mustn't stand any of his impudence, eh?"
+
+I was sorry Roy was going away, for Roy is my great friend. He always
+fights the battles for both of us. I daresay I might have got into the
+way of fighting my own battles, but I never like to interfere with
+anybody's pleasure, and Roy's chief pleasure is fighting. As for me, I
+think the delights of that recreation are over-estimated.
+
+When my master came home, he opened the basket, and a dog of Irish
+family tumbled out, growling and snarling, and hid himself under the
+sofa. They wasted more biscuits on him than I have ever seen wasted on
+any deserving dog; and at last they got him out, and he consented to eat
+some supper. They gave him a much better basket than mine, and we went
+to bed.
+
+Next morning, the Irish terrier got out of his basket, stretched
+himself, yawned, and insisted on thrashing me before breakfast.
+
+"But I am a dog of peace," I said; "I don't fight."
+
+"But I do, you see," he answered, "that's just the difference."
+
+I tried to defend myself, but he got hold of one of my feet, and held it
+up. I sat up, and howled with pain and indignation.
+
+"Have you had enough?" he said, and, without waiting for my answer,
+proceeded to give me more.
+
+"But I don't fight," I said; "I don't approve of fighting."
+
+"Then I'll teach you to have better manners than to say so," said he,
+and he taught me for nearly five minutes.
+
+"Now then," he said, "are you licked?"
+
+"Yes," I answered; for indeed I was.
+
+"Are you sorry you ever tried to fight with me?"
+
+"Yes," still seemed to be the only thing to say.
+
+"And do you approve of fighting?"
+
+He seemed to wish me to say "yes," and so I said it.
+
+"Very well, then," he said; "now we'll be friends, if you like. Come
+along; you have given me an appetite for breakfast."
+
+"Any society worth cultivating about here?" he asked, after the meal, in
+his overbearing way.
+
+"I have a very great friend who lives next door," I said; "but I don't
+know whether I should care to introduce you to him."
+
+He showed his teeth, and asked what I meant.
+
+"You see, you might not like him; and, if you didn't like him----but
+he's a most agreeable dog."
+
+"A good fighter?" asked Rustler.
+
+I scratched my ear with my hind foot, and pretended to think.
+
+"Oh, I see he's not," said Rustler contemptuously; "well, you shall
+introduce him to me directly he comes back."
+
+Rustler's overbearing and disagreeable manners so upset me that I was
+quite thin when, at the end of the week, Roy came home. I told him my
+troubles at once.
+
+"Bring your Rustler along," he said grandly, "and introduce him to
+_me_."
+
+So I did. Rustler came along with his ears up, and his miserable tail
+in the air. Roy lay by his kennel looking the image of serenity and
+peacefulness. To judge by his expression, he might not have had a tooth
+in his head.
+
+Rustler stood with his feet as far apart as he could get them, and put
+his head on one side.
+
+"I have heard so much about you, Mr. What's-your-name," he said, "that I
+have come to make a closer acquaintance."
+
+"Delighted, I'm sure," said Roy, who has splendid manners.
+
+"If you will get on your legs," said Rustler rudely, "I will tell you
+what I think of you."
+
+Roy got on his legs, still looking very humble, and the next minute he
+had Rustler by the front foot, and was making him sit down and scream
+just as Rustler had made me. It was a magnificent fight.
+
+"Have you had enough?" said Roy, and then gave him more without waiting
+for an answer.
+
+"I don't want to fight any more," said Rustler at last; "I am sorry I
+spoke."
+
+"Then I'll teach you to have more pluck than to own it," said Roy.
+
+When he had taught him for some time, he said, "Are you licked?"
+
+"Yes," said Rustler, glaring at me out his uninjured eye.
+
+"Are you sorry you tried to fight with me?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Will you promise to leave my little friend here alone?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Then Roy let him go. We shook tails all round, and Rustler and I went
+home.
+
+"Poor Rustler," I said, "I know exactly how you feel."
+
+"You little humbug," he said, with half a laugh--for he is not an
+ill-natured fellow when you come to know him--"you managed it very
+cleverly, and I'm not one to bear malice; but, I say, your friend is
+A1."
+
+We are now the most united trio, and Roy and Rustler have licked all the
+other dogs in the neighbourhood.
+
+
+
+
+A Noble Dog
+
+
+ROVER would go into the water fast enough for a bathe or a swim, but he
+would not bring anything out. The children used to throw in sticks, and
+Rover and I used to bound in together; but I would bring the stick back,
+while he swam round and round, enjoying himself.
+
+I am not vain, but I could not help feeling how much superior I was to
+such a dog as Rover. He is a prize Newfoundland, and I am only a humble
+retriever of obscure family.
+
+So one day I said to him--
+
+"Why don't you fetch the sticks out when the children throw them in?"
+
+"I don't care about sticks," he said.
+
+"But it's so grand and clever to be able to fetch them out."
+
+"Is it?" he answered.
+
+"I know it is, for the children tell me so."
+
+"Do they?" he said.
+
+"I wonder you are not ashamed," I went on, a little nettled by his
+meekness, "never to do anything useful. I should be, if I were you."
+
+"Ah," he said, "but you see you are not. Good night."
+
+We used to spend a great deal of time by the river. The children loved
+to play there, and we dogs were always expected to go with them.
+
+One day, as I was lying asleep on the warm grass by the river bank, I
+heard a splash. I jumped in, but there was no stick, only one of the
+children floating down on the stream, and screaming whenever her head
+came from under the water.
+
+I thought it was a new kind of game, not very interesting, so I swam out
+again; and just as I was shaking the water out of my ears, I heard
+another great flop, and there was Rover in the water, holding on to the
+child's dress. He pulled her out some ten yards down the stream; and oh!
+if you could have seen the fuss that the master and mistress and the
+rest of the children made of that black and white spotted person!
+
+"Why, Rover," I said afterwards, when we had got home and were
+talking it over, "whatever made you think that the child wanted to be
+pulled out of the water?"
+
+"It's my business to pull people out of the water," he said.
+
+"But," I urged, "I always thought you were too stupid to understand
+things."
+
+"Did you?" he said, turning his mild eyes on me.
+
+"Why didn't you explain to me that you----"
+
+"My dear dog," he said, "I never think it worth while to fetch sticks
+out of the water, and I never think it worth while to explain things to
+stupid people."
+
+
+
+
+The Dyer's Dog
+
+
+SHE was beautiful, with a strange unearthly beauty. She had a little
+black nose. Her eyes were small, but bright and full of charm. Her ears
+were long and soft, and her tail curled like one of the ostrich plumes
+in the window of the dyer with whom she lived.
+
+I have met many little dogs with noses as charming, and eyes as bright,
+and tails as curly; but never one who, like my Bessie, was a rich, deep
+pink all over.
+
+I lived with a baker then. I was sitting on his doorstep when she first
+delighted my eyes. I ran across the road to give her good morning. She
+seemed pleased to see me. We had a little chat about the weather and the
+other dogs in the street, and about buns, and rats, and the vices of the
+domestic cat.
+
+Her manners and her conversation were as bright and charming as her
+eyes. Before we parted, we had made an appointment for the next
+afternoon, and as I said good-bye, I ventured to ask--
+
+"How is it, lady, that you are of such a surpassingly beautiful colour?"
+
+"It is natural to our family," she said, tossing her pretty ears. "My
+mother was the Royal Crimson Dog at the Court of the King of India."
+
+I bowed with deep respect and withdrew, for I heard them calling me at
+home.
+
+The next day I looked for my beautiful pink-coloured lady, but I looked
+in vain. Instead, a dog of a bright sky-blue, with a yellow ribbon round
+its neck, sat in the sun on the dyer's doorstep. Yet, could I be
+mistaken? That nose, those ears, that feathery tail, those bright and
+beaming eyes!
+
+I went across. She received me with some embarrassment, which
+disappeared as I talked gaily of milk and guinea pigs, and the habits of
+the cats'-meat man. Before we parted I said--
+
+"You have changed your dress."
+
+"Yes," she said, "it's so common and vulgar to wear always one colour."
+
+"But I thought"--I hesitated--"that your mother was the Royal Crimson
+Dog at the Court of----"
+
+"So she was," replied the lady promptly, "but my father was the
+well-known sky-blue terrier at the Crystal Palace Dog Show. I resemble
+both my parents."
+
+I retired, fascinated by her high breeding and graceful explanations.
+Through my dreams that night wandered a long procession of blue and
+crimson dogs.
+
+The next day, when I hurried to keep the appointment she had been good
+enough to make with me, I found her a deep purple. Again I concealed my
+surprise, while we talked of subjects of common interest, of dog-collars
+and chains and kennels, of biscuits, bones, and the outrage of the
+muzzling order; and at last I said--
+
+"You have changed your dress again. Your mother was the Royal----"
+
+"Oh, don't," she said, "it's so tiresome to keep repeating things. My
+father was red and my mother was blue, and I myself, as you see, am
+purple. Don't you know that crimson and blue make purple? Any child with
+a shilling box of paints could have told you that."
+
+I thanked her, and came away. Purple seemed to me the most beautiful
+colour in the world.
+
+But the next day she was green--as green as grass. After the customary
+exchange of civilities, I remarked firmly--
+
+"Blue and crimson may make purple, but----"
+
+"But green is my favourite colour," she said briskly. "I suppose a dog
+is not to be bound down by the prejudices of its parents?"
+
+I went away very sadly, and, as I went, I noticed that there were some
+curtains in the dyer's window of exactly the same tint as my friend's
+dress. The next day she was gone.
+
+I sought her in vain. The day after, a French poodle appeared on the
+dyer's doorstep, dressed in stripes of orange and scarlet. I went boldly
+across to him.
+
+"Good morning, old man; how do you come to be that colour?" I said.
+
+"They dye me so," he answered gloomily. "It's a dreadful lot for a dog
+that respects himself."
+
+I never saw Bessie but once again. She seemed then to be living with a
+tinsmith, and her colour was a gingery white.
+
+I hope I am too much of a gentleman to taunt any lady in misfortune, but
+I couldn't help saying--
+
+"Why don't you wear any of your beautiful coloured dresses now?"
+
+She answered me curtly, for she saw that she had ceased to charm.
+
+"I gave up wearing my pretty dresses," she said, "because silly people
+asked me so many questions about them."
+
+As usual, I accepted her explanations in silence; but, when I see the
+poodle opposite, in his varying glories of blue, and green, and orange,
+and purple, I can't help thinking that perhaps my fair Bessie did not
+always speak the truth.
+
+
+
+The Vain Setter
+
+
+OURS is one of the most ancient and noble families in the land, and I
+contend that family pride is an exalted sentiment. I still hold to this
+belief, in spite of all the sufferings that it has brought upon me.
+
+My father, whose ancestor came over with the Conqueror, has taken prizes
+at many a county show; and my mother, the handsomest of her sex, took
+one prize, and would have taken more, but for the unfortunate accident
+of having her tail cut off in a door.
+
+I early determined to be worthy of my high breeding and undoubted
+descent. A setter should have long, silky ears. I made my brother pull
+mine gently for an hour at a time. In order to lengthen them, I combed
+their fringes with my paws.
+
+My father's brow is lofty and narrow. The unfortunate accident which
+removed my mother from public life, suggested to me a way of cultivating
+our most famous family characteristic. I used to place my head between
+the doorpost and the door, while my brother leaned gently against the
+latter, so as to press my skull to the requisite shape. My legs, I knew,
+ought to be straight. I never indulged in any of those field-sports, to
+which my brother early turned a light-hearted attention; for I knew
+that undue exercise tends to curve the legs.
+
+My tail was my special care. Regardless of comfort, I twisted myself
+into the shape of a capital O, and, holding the end of my tail gently,
+but firmly, in my teeth, I stretched myself and it.
+
+So much pains devoted to such a noble object could not be thrown away. I
+became the handsomest setter in the three counties.
+
+My brother, in the meantime, grew expert in the coarse sporting
+exercises to which he devoted his energies. He had no pride. He tramped
+the mud of the fields; he tore his ears in bramble bushes; and I have
+seen him so far lose all sense of our family's dignity as to grovel at
+the feet of his master, and raise one of his paws, to indicate that
+birds were near--common birds; I believe they are called partridges.
+
+"You might as well," I said to him bitterly--"you might as well have
+been born a pointer."
+
+"Why not?" he said. "I know a pointer," he went on, laughing in his
+merry, careless way--"I know a pointer who lives at the Pines Farm. A
+capital fellow he is."
+
+"My dear boy," I said, "just come and squeeze my head in the door a
+little, will you? and let me tell you that for one of our family to
+associate with a pointer is social ruin--common, coarse, smooth-coated
+persons, related, I should suppose, to the vulgar plum-pudding dog."
+
+My brother only laughed; but he was a good-natured fellow, and pinched
+my head in the door until my forehead could stand the strain no longer.
+
+I was sent to the Crystal Palace Dog Show; and, as I looked round on the
+hundreds of dogs of all families and nationalities, I breathed a sigh
+of contentment, and blessed the fate that had made me, in this England
+of ours, a well-born English setter. My brother was not at the Show, of
+course; but I think even he would have admired me if he could have seen
+how far superior I was to all about me. Of course, I took the first
+prize. My mission was fulfilled: my family pride was satisfied. The
+judges unanimously pronounced me to be the most perfect and beautiful
+sporting dog in the whole Show. My master, wild with delight, patted my
+silky forehead, and then turned aside to talk with a stout gentleman in
+gaiters.
+
+I thought of what my life would be--one long, joyous round of shows,
+applause, pats on the head from a grateful master, delicious food and
+first prizes.
+
+But my master's base nature--his ancestors came over with George and
+the Hanoverians--struck all my hopes to the ground. I woke from my
+dream of triumph to find myself sold to the stout man in gaiters.
+
+I never saw my brother again. I was never able to tell my fond and
+doting mother that I, like her, had taken a prize. I was never able to
+chat with my father over a bone, comparing with him experiences of the
+show bench. The stout, gaitered man took me away into a far country.
+
+The next morning he took me out into the fields, and looked at me from
+time to time, as if he expected me to do something. Unwilling to
+disappoint him, I sat down and began my usual exercise for lengthening
+my tail. He at once struck me violently. We went a little farther, and I
+noticed that he looked more and more displeased; but I could not imagine
+what it could be that so distressed him. Presently one of those common
+partridge birds had the impertinence to fly out close to me. I caught it
+at once, and looked round for applause. There only came another shower
+of blows.
+
+"What's the good of your taking prizes," he said, "if you're such an
+idiot in the field?--might as well have a greyhound."
+
+"I wish you had," I said under my breath.
+
+I spent a week in torment, and then it occurred to me that this
+low-born, gaitered person would have been better pleased with my
+brother. So I tried to recall the tricks with which my brother had
+particularly aggravated me; and, the next time I smelt a partridge, I
+lay down, as I had seen my brother do, and lifted a foolish foot. I was
+rewarded with a pat and encouragement.
+
+I have now sunk entirely to my brother's level. My master pronounces me
+to be a most excellent sporting dog. But I shall never forget the blows
+and angry words that were necessary to make me renounce my ideal of what
+a setter should be; and deep in my heart I still cherish, with
+passionate devotion, my views on duty, and my honourable family pride.
+
+
+          Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.
+                  Edinburgh & London
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Pussy and Doggy Tales, by Edith Nesbit
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