"Mice, I suppose; or you can have some of my buns if you like. You might
like them at first, but you will soon get tired of them."
But I couldn't eat buns. I was never, from a kitten, fond of such
things. I got very hungry. Again and again the mice rushed through the
straw, and I, heavily, helplessly, in my unpractised way, rushed after
them. At first the elephant laughed heartily at my inexpertness; but
when he saw how hungry and wretched I was, he said--
"They won't give you any milk, and if they find you don't catch the mice
they will take you away from me. Now you are a nice little cat, and I
don't want to part with you. We must try and arrange something."
Then the great thought of my life came to me.
"You walked on the other cat," I said.
"What?" he trumpeted in a voice of thunder.
"I beg your pardon," I said hastily; "I didn't mean to hurt your
feelings"--and, indeed, I could not have imagined that an elephant would
have been so thin-skinned "but a great idea has come to me. Why
shouldn't you walk on mice--not too hard, but just so that I could eat
them afterwards?"
"Well," said the elephant, showing his long tusks in a smile, "you are
not very handsome, and you are not very brisk; but you certainly have
brains, my dear."
He dropped his great foot as he spoke. When he lifted it, there lay a
mouse. I had an excellent supper; and before the week's end I heard the
keeper say, "This cat has certainly done the trick. She has kept the
mice down. We must keep her."
They have kept me. They even go so far as to allow me to moisten my mice
with milk.
There is no moral to this story, except that you should do as you are
told, and learn everything you can while you are young. It is true that
I get on very well without having done so, but then you may not have my
good luck. It is not every cat who can get an elephant to catch her mice
for her.