Once there was a cat, and a parrot. And they had agreed to ask each other
to dinner, turn and turn about: first the cat should ask the parrot, then
the parrot should invite the cat, and so on. It was the cat's turn first.

Now the cat was very mean. He provided nothing at all for dinner except a
pint of milk, a little slice of fish, and a biscuit. The parrot was too
polite to complain, but he did not have a very good time.

When it was his turn to invite the cat, he cooked a fine dinner. He had a
roast of meat, a pot of tea, a basket of fruit, and, best of all, he baked
a whole clothes-basketful of little cakes!--little, brown, crispy, spicy
cakes! Oh, I should say as many as five hundred. And he put four hundred
and ninety-eight of the cakes before the cat, keeping only two for
himself.

Well, the cat ate the roast, and drank the tea, and sucked the fruit, and
then he began on the pile of cakes. He ate all the four hundred and
ninety-eight cakes, and then he looked round and said:--

"I'm hungry; haven't you anything to eat?"

"Why," said the parrot, "here are my two cakes, if you want them?"

The cat ate up the two cakes, and then he licked his chops and said, "I am
beginning to get an appetite; have you anything to eat?"

"Well, really," said the parrot, who was now rather angry, "I don't see
anything more, unless you wish to eat me!" He thought the cat would be