'Why doesn't he have a yellow ribbon round his dear neck? A yellow ribbon would look so sweet—so like Velasquez' scheme of colouring!'

'I never allow my cats to wear horse-collars,' said Auntie May, 'for fear of spoiling their ruffs. I think I must put you in again, darling, for I want to read. You won't mind, will you, for I will leave you my hand to lick!'

So down went the lid on me, and the lady in the corner calmed down, though she still chirped occasionally like the birds in the square garden in the mornings.

The rushing and the rocking stopped suddenly, and I heard a voice call out 'Darlington!'

'Oh, how sweet!' said the lady in the corner. 'And what are you going to do with your darling cat?'

'Put him on the rails!' said Auntie May, quite rudely. 'Good morning!'

But we did not catch our train; it had gone. We had missed the connection. 'Tant pis!' Auntie May said (which means 'All the worse!'). 'We will go and put an ornamental frill round something.'

That meant eat, as I found soon enough. She opened the basket and turned me out on to a marble tablecloth, very cold to the feet, and gave me a saucer full of milk. I don't like eating off anything white, for that always means getting banged. Auntie May's way of preventing kittens from stealing off tables is to associate eating off anything white in their minds with a whipping. However, in this case it was she herself who put me up to it. When we had done (Auntie May ate a couple of sponge-cakes) we went to another room where a woman in grey was sitting over the fire knitting, and Auntie May talked to an old gentleman with black silk gaiters and a black silk pinafore like Rosamond's, who turned out to be the bishop of the town near where Beatrice lived. It was all delightful, except that people kept opening the door of the room and looking in and going away again, making me jump every time, and the bishop too. I am a nervous little cat, as Auntie May told the black lady, and I am to Fred as a carthorse is to a racehorse. After we had sat there for what seemed a long time, a guard put his head in at the door and said, as if it didn't particularly matter, 'Anybody here for the four-fifteen?'

It did matter, and everybody jumped up except the grey-haired woman, who went on knitting. Auntie May popped me into the basket, and fastened the lid safely; the bishop offered to carry me, but she would not let him. I was relieved, and I think by the sound of his voice he was relieved too. I did not mew, for it would only distress her and disgrace her before her new friend. Besides, I was full, and you have no idea what a difference it makes. I curled round and determined to take no notice of any sort of noise. Even when Auntie May prodded me with her finger kindly, I wished she would not, for I felt too stupid to mew, and just wanted to be let alone for the rest of the journey. Besides, I felt rather sick. They should not fill one up with milk like a bottle and then shake one about. I wished I had refused it at the time.

The train slowed down, and the bishop said, 'Can I be of assistance to you in any way?'