"Suddenly a pounce, and a little squeak of delight: 'The ball is mine,' she thinks, and begins to play with it. She tosses it to and fro, now biting it, now patting it—preparatory, no doubt, to swallowing it.
"But do not be too sure, Miss Pussy! See, the ball flies from her, as if possessed with life. It rolls away, on and on. And Pussy, who had thought it dead, seems struck with wonder. 'Can it be alive after all?' she thinks; 'there must be a mouse inside it!' then scamper, scamper, a spring and a leap, and she has caught the ball again. Once more it escapes from her claws—once more she bounds towards it, and now it is surely hers. I confess it was rather interesting to me to look on, and more than once I nearly joined in the chase after the ball myself. Then Pussy would roll about on the floor with it, but never did she find a mouse inside it. Poor Pussy, every day she deceived herself thus! Then I would laugh to myself. Cats are such silly aimless things! They have no higher motives than a soft ball!"
"Yes," said Miss Perkie, "but isn't it time you began your story?"
"That is my story, you simpleton!" answered King Charlie.
"Oh, I did not know that: it was not much like one, you know."
"Eh? I call it a capital story. But now it is your turn again, unless Miss Nelly will tell us one?" he said, and turned to me.
"I don't know many stories of cats' and dogs' adventures; but I will describe a walk I once took with the dog I had before you, Charlie, if you like."
And I began: "His name was Tim, and he was a Pomeranian dog. Everybody liked him, and he liked everybody and everything excepting cats. He never harmed our cats, though—it was before your time, Perkie—and never used even to worry them. But he could not abide strange cats. His greatest enemy was a big black tom, that lived quite near here. He is dead now, killed by Tim, and I am going to tell you how it all happened.