"Good-bye," he said. "I don't suppose you will see me again, or if you do, I don't suppose you will recognise me. I am going up to London to marry the Queen."
The stable cat expressed no surprise at this remarkable statement. She merely winked her yellow eyes and answered nothing.
"I suppose she thinks I am too fine to be spoken to by such as she!" said Thomas to himself as he stalked away.
The journey up to London was certainly not a success as far as Thomas was concerned.
He was put in a basket. This he considered undignified, as well as uncomfortable, and he took no pains to conceal his feelings. He scratched and spluttered at the side of the basket, and uttered his opinion of the family with no uncertain voice. But nobody paid any attention to him.
"Very well," he cried at last. "When I am King of England you won't put me in a basket any more. The next time I go on a journey, it will be in a coach and four."
Then he started thinking of how many mice he had caught last week, and this thought comforted him so much that he curled round and went to sleep for the rest of the journey.
The evening after they arrived, one of the young ladies of the family was to go and see the Queen. Thomas privately decided to go with her.
He did not tell her he was coming too.
"Though, of course, if she knew I was her future King, she would be only too delighted to be going with me," he thought. "All the same, I think I will go quite quietly without any fuss, there will be plenty of time for that afterwards."