'Yet, all the same,' said the King to himself, 'old and withered as she is, she is more to me than the youngest and loveliest of all other Princesses.'
'I don't care if he is gray,' said the Princess to herself; 'whatever he is, he's the only possible one.'
'Here's a pretty kettle of fish!' said the Cat. 'Why on earth didn't you come before?'
'I came as soon as I could,' said the King.
The Cat, walking about the room in an agitated way, kicked against the wallet the King had dropped.
'What's this,' she said crossly, rubbing her toes, for the wallet was hard, and she had hurt herself more than a little.
'Oh, that,' said the King—'that's just the steel bolts and hammers and things that my resolves to find the Princess turned into when I failed and never did find her. I never could bear to throw them away; I had a sort of feeling that they might be good for something, since they hurt me so much when they came to me. I thought perhaps I could batter down the doors of the Princess's tower with them.'
'They're good for something better than that,' said the Cat joyously.
She went away, and the two heard her hammering away below. Presently she staggered in with a great basket of white powder, and emptied it on the floor; then she went away for more.
The King helped her with the next basketful, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, for there were seven of them, and the heap of white powder stood up in the room as high as the King's middle.