‘It’s no use your going,’ said the thing that looked like a giant reflection of Maurice; ‘it’s me he wants.’
‘But I didn’t agree to your being me.’
‘That’s poetry, even if it isn’t grammar,’ said the thing that looked like Maurice. ‘Why, my good cat, don’t you see that if you are I, I must be you? Otherwise we should interfere with time and space, upset the balance of power, and as likely as not destroy the solar system. Oh, yes—I’m you, right enough, and shall be, till some one tells you to change from Lord Hugh into Maurice. And now you’ve got to find some one to do it.’
(‘Maurice!’ thundered the voice of Mr. Basingstoke.)
[p11]
‘That’ll be easy enough,’ said Maurice.
‘Think so?’ said the other.
‘But I sha’n’t try yet. I want to have some fun first. I shall catch heaps of mice!’
‘Think so? You forget that your whiskers are cut off—Maurice cut them. Without whiskers, how can you judge of the width of the places you go through? Take care you don’t get stuck in a hole that you can’t get out of or go in through, my good cat.’
‘Don’t call me a cat,’ said Maurice, and felt that his tail was growing thick and angry.
‘You are a cat, you know—and that little bit of temper that I see in your tail reminds me——’