And so, you may guess, she wasn’t in the best of tempers.
Whether she heard the Bluebottle’s proposal of marriage or not, I really can’t say. If she did, you may be sure it didn’t please her, for she just made a snatch with her paw and grabbed him by the leg.
Now, it would have been all up with him if the maiden relative hadn’t flown up in the very nick of time and tickled the cat’s nose.
Very well, that made the cat sneeze so violently that she let go of the Bluebottle’s leg, and so he flew away. But his leg was broken; and the doctor came every day for a week, and then he sent in his bill. And the maiden friend brought all her savings rolled up in an old stocking of her mother’s. And so the Bluebottle paid the doctor, and there was an end of that.
Now, would you believe it, the Bluebottle was so young and giddy that his leg was scarcely well before he began to wonder where he should go courting next.
“When there are so many old maids in the world,” said he, “it’s a bachelor’s duty to look round for a wife. I do it out of charity.”
“Charity begins at home,” said his lady friend, and blushed in a modest way.
But the Bluebottle was not the kind of person to take a hint. So he just put on another new waistcoat, and away he flew into the woods.
And there a fine young lady woodpecker was hopping about digging for worms in a ladylike manner.
“Now, here is a person after my own heart,” said the Bluebottle. “She doesn’t wait for us men to bring her food; she just helps herself. I might do worse than marry her.”