PUSSY CAT, PUSSY CAT
"The man who loses his opportunity loses himself"
Pussy Cat, Pussy Cat, where have you been?"
I've been to London to visit the Queen."
Pussy Cat, Pussy Cat, what did you there?"
I frightened a little mouse under her chair."
You would never think to look at Thomas now, as he lies blinking in front of the fire, that he once had the chance of being King of England!
To us, Thomas only looks like an ordinary, sleek, well-fed, tabby cat. But then, you see, you don't know Thomas' Private History. Thomas himself is usually too sleepy to think about his early adventures now, but time was, when the mere mention of the Queen's name, would start him off purring at the thought of what might have been!
It was a long time ago, when Thomas was just emerging from the kitten stage, that his Private History really began. It started one evening when mother was reading the children the story of the White Cat in front of the nursery fire before they went to bed. Thomas, who had been more than usually frisky all day, was taking a little repose on the hearthrug, and as the story was about a cat, had condescended to listen.
You all know the story—how the White Cat, though in the form of a cat, was really a princess, and how she married the prince, and changed back into a princess at last.
Thomas listened enthralled, and from the moment the story ended, his Private History began.
For, at the close of the story, Thomas had quite come to the conclusion that he, too, was no ordinary cat. No! As the White Cat in the story was really a princess, Thomas was now convinced that he was really a prince, and only waiting to marry a princess, or better still, a Queen, to show himself in his true guise.
It was soon after this idea entered his head that Thomas became almost intolerable.