"Wait for me!" cried Puss, Jr., but Wee Willie Winkie did not stop. On he ran, turning the next corner before Puss could overtake him. Half-way down the block Puss stopped and ran up the steps of a small house. Lifting the big brass knocker, he let it fall with a rap that soon brought a maid to the door.
"Goodness me!" she exclaimed. "What have we here?"
"Is anybody at home?" said Puss, flicking the dust off the red tops of his boots in a most unconcerned way, as if, indeed, he had been accustomed to making calls all his life.
The maid held out a little silver tray. "I will take your card."
Poor Puss! He didn't have any!
"But I'm Puss in Boots, Junior," he said, with such a lovely purr that the maid opened the door wide:
"Come in, dear Puss, Junior."
Just then Wee Willie Winkie ran down the stairs, crying: "Are the children in their beds? It's past eight o'clock." Closing the front door, he whispered through the keyhole, "Are the children in their beds?" And before he reached the sidewalk he turned back and, rapping on the window, cried, "It's past eight o'clock!"
"Little kittens don't need Wee Willie Winkie, I guess," said the maid, tickling Puss, Jr.'s, head.
"Hush-a-bye, baby, lie still with thy daddy;
Thy mammy has gone to the mill
To get some meal to bake a cake,
So pray, my dear baby, lie still."