“I don’t know whether to eat you head first or tail first,” said the cat, as he looked at the poor mouse lady. “I must make up my mind before I begin.”
Now while he was making up his mind Mrs. No-Tail sat in the other room, wondering what kept Mrs. Longtail such a long time away, getting the second cup of tea.
“Perhaps I had better go and see what’s keeping her,” Mrs. No-Tail thought. “She may have burned herself on the hot stove, or teapot.” So she went toward the kitchen, and there she saw a dreadful sight, for there was that bad cat, holding poor Mrs. Longtail in his claws and opening his mouth to eat her.
“Oh, let me go! Please let me go!” the mouse lady begged.
“No, I’ll not,” answered the cat, and once more he licked his whiskers with his red tongue.
“Oh, I must do something to that cat!” thought Mrs. No-Tail. “I must make him let Mrs. Longtail go.”
So she thought and thought, and finally the frog lady saw a sprinkling can hanging on a nail in the dining-room, where Mrs. Longtail kept it to water the flowers with.
“I think that will do,” said Mrs. No-Tail. So she very quietly and carefully took it off the nail, and then she went softly out of the front door, and around to the side of the house to the rain-water barrel, where she filled the watering can. Then she came back with it into the house.
“Now,” she thought, “if I can only get up behind the cat and pour the water on him, he’ll think it’s raining, and as cats don’t like rain he may run away, and let Mrs. Longtail go.”
So Mrs. No-Tail tip-toed out into the kitchen as quietly as she could, for she didn’t want the cat to see her. But the savage animal, who had made his tail as big as a skyrocket, was getting ready to eat Mrs. Longtail, and he was going to begin head first. So he didn’t notice Mrs. No-Tail.