I arched my back to make myself look as terrible as possible, and my hair standing all on end made me look double the size. Then I growled, but not quite so loud as the lion. The lion had lain down for a spring, but I am sure he had never seen the like of me before.
On I marched, half sideways.
The lion looked droll and puzzled.
I was within a yard of him now, still walking half sideways, with arched back and one foot in the air. I did this for effect.
“Fuss-ss! Fut! Sphut!”
I jumped directly at his face. But I never got near him. With a yell of terror he sprang high in the air, then made off into the dark depths of the forest as fast as his four legs could carry him.
My adventure was over, for I saw him no more; but oh, joy! half-an-hour after this, just as the beautiful sun was rising, red and rosy, over the wooded hills, something as white as snow came feathering along towards me. It was my own dear blue-eyed mother, and in two hours’ time I was safely home again and on my little mistress’s lap.
The days and weeks flew by, oh, so quickly at my Persian home, and when I look back to them now it is with some degree of regret that I did not then realise my happiness. It is ever thus, and even mankind himself laments the loss of his youth. The days of the young are golden, their pathway leads over the soft sward; there are flowers at every side and trees nod green above; beyond is the azure sky, and the young think that storms will never arise, that their path will ay be smooth, that the trees will never be stripped of their foliage, nor the bright flowers cease to blow. Alas! and alas! for the dreams of youth.
Well, my youth or my kittenhood came to an end. And I think it came all at once. I was in the garden one day all by myself, when suddenly I was confronted with a monster brown rat of a breed that grows larger in Persia, they tell me, than anywhere else in the world.
Will you believe me, children, when I tell you that I felt more afraid of that rat than I had been of the lion? The awful beast did not even run away, and I knew it would be a battle to the bitter end.