But Madame Théophile had not lain still all this while. Slowly, without even appearing to move, she had drawn closer and closer. Her pink nostrils trembled, her eyes were half shut, her claws were pushed out and pulled into their sheaths, and little shivers ran down her back.
Suddenly her back rounded itself like a bent bow, and with one bound she leapt on the cage. The parrot knew his danger, and was too frightened to move; then, calling up all his courage, he looked his enemy full in the face, and, in a low and deep voice he put the question: ‘Jacky, did you have a good breakfast?’
This simple phrase struck terror into the heart of the cat, who made a spring backwards. If a cannon had been fired close to her ear, or a shopful of glass had been broken, she could not have been more alarmed. Never had she dreamed of anything like this.
‘And what did you have—some of the king’s roast beef?’ continued the parrot.
‘It is not a chicken, it is a man that is speaking,’ thought the cat with amazement, and looking at her master, who was standing by, she retired under the bed. Madame Théophile knew when she was beaten.
THE BATTLE OF THE MULLETS AND THE DOLPHINS
Many singular stories may be found in Pliny, but the most interesting is how men and dolphins combine together on the coast of France, near Narbonne, to catch the swarms of mullet that come into those waters at certain seasons of the year.
