XCI.


"There, now," said a kitten, triumphantly, laying a passive mouse at
the feet of her mother. "I flatter myself I am coming on with a
reasonable degree of rapidity. What will become of the minor
quadrupeds when I have attained my full strength and ferocity, it is
mournful to conjecture!"

"Did he give you much trouble?" inquired the aged ornament of the
hearth-side, with a look of tender solicitude.

"Trouble!" echoed the kitten, "I never had such a fight in all my
life! He was a downright savage--in his day."

"My Falstaffian issue," rejoined the Tabby, dropping her eyelids and
composing her head for a quiet sleep, "the above is a _toy_ mouse."




XCII.


A crab who had travelled from the mouth of the Indus all the way to
Ispahan, knocked, with much chuckling, at the door of the King's