He had no sooner said this than the Cat, with a Great Glare of her Green Eyes, bristled her Tail like a Gun-Swab and went over the Back Fence, head first—pop!—as Mad as a Wet Hen.
And this is how she came to do so:
The story is an old one—very, very old. It may be Persian; it may be not: that is of very little moment. It is so old that if all the nine lives of all the cats that have ever lived in the world were set up together in a line, the other end of it would just reach back to the time when this occurred.
“the cat that ground the coffee in the king’s kitchen”
And this is the story:
Many, many years ago, in a country which was quite as far from anywhere else as the entire distance thither and back, there was a huge cat that ground the coffee in the King’s kitchen, and otherwise assisted with the meals.
This cat was, in truth, the actual and very father of all subsequent cats, and his name was Sooty Will, for his hair was as black as a night in a coal-hole. He was ninety years old, and his mustaches were like whisk-brooms. But the most singular thing about him was that in all his life he had never once purred nor humped up his back, although his master often stroked him. The fact was that he never had learned to purr, nor had any reason, so far as he knew, for humping up his back. And being the father of all the cats, there was no one to tell him how. It remained for him to acquire a reason, and from his example to devise a habit which cats have followed from that time forth, and no doubt will forever follow.
The King of the country had long been at war with one of his neighbors, but one morning he sent back a messenger to say that he had beaten his foeman at last, and that he was coming home for an early breakfast as hungry as three bears. “Have batter-cakes and coffee,” he directed, “hot, and plenty of ’em!”
At that the turnspits capered and yelped with glee, for batter-cakes and coffee are not cooked upon spits, and so they were free to sally forth into the city streets and watch the King’s homecoming in a grand parade.