"Wow!" cried the China Cat from the floor. "My cracks are growing together again! I believe I am as good as new!" And she arched her back and yawned.
The Lion lashed his tail once, to be sure that he could really do it, and looked about the shop in disgust. "I must away!" he said.
"Oh!" cried the Cat, lazily, beginning to lick her paw, as if she had always been doing so since the discovery of China. "You are so restless! Where are you going?"
The Lion stepped gingerly down from his striped pole to the table, and from there to the floor. As he did so, he seemed to increase in size, so that by the time he had reached the shop door he was as large as an ordinary lion. "I am going to seek Them," said the Lion, with dignity. "I am, as you see, a Lion Passant, the crest of a noble house. Many years I have been separated from my people. I have waited for Them to come for me. Every time the shop-bell tinkled it has waked an echo of hope in my heart. But They do not come; I must, then, go to Them." He sighed deeply.
"How will you know where to find them?" asked the Cat, respectfully.
"I shall seek Them in the halls of the mighty," said the Lion proudly. "They were of the noblest in the land, I remember."
"By what name shall you know them?" asked the Cat again, who was inquisitive.
The Lion became thoughtful. "The name?" he repeated. "The name? I have forgot the name. But I was the crest that They bore in battle, the figure on their shields, the carving above their hearths."
"Yes, but times have changed, folk say," objected the Cat. "How shall you know your people among the New Ones?"
"I shall recognize Them," said the Lion confidently. "I shall know Them, the proudest, the mightiest, the bravest, and most fair. Besides, is there not the family tradition? Once, in the far ages before even I was carved, the first knight of our line had an adventure with a lion; hence my figure upon Their crest. I know not the tale complete; but this I know--that from that time on, no one of Them has been able to see a lion, to speak or hear the name, without sneezing thrice. So it was in that day, so it has been ever since."