“Speak softly,” said the cat. “Come here, and I’ll whisper.” And behind his upraised paw, he told, “The pirate ordered me to eat the dolphin; and to bring his right fin to prove that I’d done it. And now I’m too full of dinner to do it.”
“Eat him, indeed!” said Mary Frances, angrily. “I’d like to see you!”
“Oh, would you?” cried the cat. “If you only hadn’t given me so much dinner, you might have had the pleasure—that is, if the dolphin had come aboard again. You see, I can’t do it now; I can’t catch him in the water. And the pirate said he’d come for me in an hour and nine minutes. It’s close to that now,” glancing at the clock. “Oh, what shall I do?”
“Why does the pirate want the dolphin killed?”
“Hush!” exclaimed the cat. “Speak softly! Come here! I’ll whisper the reason to you. It’s on account of the lost story. He thinks you might find it, and if the dolphin is destroyed, he can run down The Good Ferry. He can’t do the work himself, for he is bound in chains on his own ship, but he has prisoners on board whom he orders about, just as he did me. He can’t get within miles of The Good Ferry if the dolphin is guiding her. He was so mad that he didn’t notice when the dolphin first came aboard that the foam from his mouth was strong soapsuds, and washed the black decks of the pirate ship snow white.”
“But,” said Mary Frances, “you forget—if the dolphin guides the ship, the pirate can’t get you!”
At that the cat began to laugh joyously, and it laughed so hard that Mary Frances laughed too; and suddenly the meat course disappeared off the table and a huge block of ice cream appeared in its place, and Mary Frances and the cat—you know what they did.
IV
THE STORY OF THE LOST STORY
