"Why did the cat have two black stripes? Why? why?"
"Just what I was going to tell," said the pacifier of desperadoes.
"They were off on a tremendous adventure, with anthills for mountains and clover-stems for the tree-trunks of forests in the path. Tragedy seemed due for the mice, when a bee dropped off a thistle blossom for a remarkable reason—none other than that a hummingbird cuffed him in the ear with his wing—and the bee, looking for revenge with his stinger on the first vulnerable spot, stung the cat right in the Achilles tendon of his paw, just as that paw was about to descend with murderous purpose. The cat ran away crying, with both black stripes ridges of fur sticking up straight, while the rest of the fur lay nice and smooth; and the mice giggled so that their ears nearly wiggled off their heads. So all ended happily."
"He does beat all!" thought Mrs. Galway, who had overheard part of the nonsense from the doorway. "Wouldn't it make Pete Leddy mad if he could hear the man who took his gun away getting off fairy stuff like that!"
Mrs. Galway had brought in a cake of her own baking. She was slightly jealous of the neighbors' pastry as entering into her own particular field of excellence. Jack saw that the supply of cake in the Galway pantry must be as limitless as the pigments on the Eternal Painter's palette.
"The doctor said that I was to have a light diet," he expostulated; "and
I am stuffed to the brim."
"I'll make you some floating island," said Mrs. Galway, refusing to strike her colors.
"That isn't filling and passes the time," Jack admitted.
"Jim says if you had to Fletcherize on floating island you would starve to death and your teeth would get so used to missing a step on the stairs that they would never be able to deal with real victuals at all."
"Mrs. Galway," Jack observed sagely, dropping his head on the back of the chair, "I see that it has occurred to you and Jim that it is an excellent world and full of excellent nonsense. I am ready to eat both fluffy isles and the yellow sea in which they float. I am ready to keep on getting hungry with my efforts, even though you make it continents and oceans!"