<SPAN name="startofbook"></SPAN>
<h1>Pussy and Doggy Tales</h1>
<h3>By</h3>
<h2>E. Nesbit</h2>
<h2>Contents</h2>
<div class='center'>
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Contents">
<tr><td align='center' colspan='2'>Pussy Tales</td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'> </td><td align='right'><small>PAGE</small></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Too Clever by Half</span></td><td align='right'><SPAN href="#Page_3">3</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The White Persian</span></td><td align='right'><SPAN href="#Page_16">16</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Powerful Friend</span></td><td align='right'><SPAN href="#Page_26">26</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Silly Question</span></td><td align='right'><SPAN href="#Page_40">40</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Selfish Pussy</span></td><td align='right'><SPAN href="#Page_47">47</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Meddlesome Pussy</span></td><td align='right'><SPAN href="#Page_54">54</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Nine Lives</span></td><td align='right'><SPAN href="#Page_62">62</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii"></SPAN></span></td></tr>
<tr><td align='center' colspan='2'><br/>Doggy Tales</td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'> </td><td align='right'><small>PAGE</small></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Tinker</span></td><td align='right'><SPAN href="#Page_79">79</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Rats!</span></td><td align='right'><SPAN href="#Page_95">95</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Tables Turned</span></td><td align='right'><SPAN href="#Page_100">100</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Noble Dog</span></td><td align='right'><SPAN href="#Page_108">108</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Dyer's Dog</span></td><td align='right'><SPAN href="#Page_114">114</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Vain Setter</span></td><td align='right'><SPAN href="#Page_123">123</SPAN></td></tr>
</table></div>
<h2>Too Clever by Half</h2>
<div class='cap'>"TELL us a story, mother," said the
youngest kitten but three.</div>
<p>"You've heard all my stories," said the
mother cat, sleepily turning over in the hay.</p>
<p>"Then make a new one," said the youngest
kitten, so pertly that Mrs. Buff boxed her
ears at once—but she laughed too. Did
you ever hear a cat laugh? People say that
cats often have occasion to do it.</p>
<p>"I do know one story," she said; "but I'm
not sure that it's true, though it was told me
by a most respectable brindled gentleman,
a great friend of my dear mother's. He<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_4" id="Page_4"></SPAN></span>
said he was a second cousin twenty-nine
times removed of Mrs. Tabby White, the
lady the story is about."</p>
<p>"Oh, do tell it," said all the kittens, sitting
up very straight and looking at their mother
with green anxious eyes.</p>
<p>"Very well," she said kindly; "only if
you interrupt I shall leave off."</p>
<p>So there was silence in the barn, except
for Mrs. Buff's voice and the soft sound of
pleased purring which the kittens made as
they listened to the enchanting tale.</p>
<hr style="width: 45%;" />
<p>"Mrs. Tabby White seems to have been
as clever a cat as ever went rat-catching in
a pair of soft-soled shoes. She always knew
just where a mouse would peep out of the
wainscot, and she had her soft-sharp paw
on him before he had time to know that
he was not alone in the room. She knew
how to catch nice breakfasts for herself and<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_5" id="Page_5"></SPAN></span>
her children, a trick I will teach you, my
dears, when the spring comes; she used to
lie quite quietly among the ivy on the wall,
and then take the baby birds out of the
nest when the grown-up birds had gone to
the grub-shop. Mrs. Tabby White was
very clever, as I said—so clever that presently
she was not satisfied with being at
the very top of the cat profession.</p>
<p>"'Cat-people have more sense than
human people, of course,' she said to herself;
'but still there are some things one
might learn from them. I must watch and
see how they do things.'</p>
<p>"So next morning when the cook gave
Mrs. Tabby White her breakfast, she noticed
that cook poured the milk out of a jug into
a saucer. That afternoon Tabby felt thirsty,
but instead of putting her head into the jug
and drinking in the usual way,—you know—she
tilted up the jug to pour the milk out<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_6" id="Page_6"></SPAN></span>
as she had seen the cook do. But cats'
paws, though they are so strong to catch
rats and mice and birds, are too weak to
hold big brown jugs. The nasty deceitful
jug fell off the dresser and broke itself.
'Just to spite me, I do believe,' said Mrs.
Tabby. And the milk was all spilled.</p>
<p>"Now how on earth could that jug have
been broken?' said cook, when she came in.</p>
<p>"'It must have been the cat,' said the
kitchenmaid; and she was quite right, but
nobody believed her.</p>
<p>"Then Mrs. Tabby White noticed that
human people slept in big soft-cushioned
white beds, instead of sleeping on the kitchen
hearth-rug, or in the barn, like cat people.
So she said to her children one evening—</p>
<p>"'My dears, we are going to move into
a new house.'</p>
<p>"And the kittens were delighted, and they
all went upstairs very quietly, and crept<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_7" id="Page_7"></SPAN></span>
into the very best human bed. But unfortunately
that bed had been got ready
for a human uncle to sleep in; and when
he found the cats there he turned them
out, not gently, and threw boots at them
till they fled, pale with fright to the ends
of their pretty tails. And next morning
he told the Mistress of the house that
horrid CATS had been in his bed, and
he vowed that he would never pass
another night under a roof where such
things were possible. Mrs. Tabby White
was very glad—because no lady can wish
for the visits of a person who throws
boots at her. But the Mistress of the
house said sadly, 'Oh, Tabby!—you
have lost us a fortune!' And Tabby for
all her cleverness didn't understand what
the Mistress meant, but went on purring
proudly, and wondering what clever thing
she could do next. And <i>I</i> don't know<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_8" id="Page_8"></SPAN></span>
what it meant either, so don't you interrupt
with silly questions.</p>
<p>"'I think we ought to wear shoes,' was
the next thing Mrs. Tabby White said;
but all the human shoes were too big for
her. However, there was a nice pair of
salmon-coloured kid shoes, quite new, belonging
to the human child's big doll—and
Mrs. Tabby White put them on her eldest
kitten's little browny feet.</p>
<p>"'Now, Brindle,' she said (he was named
after the gentleman who told me the
story), 'you are grander than any kitten
ever was before.' And at first Brindle felt
pleased—then he tried to feel pleased—then
he knew he wasn't pleased at all. Then
the shoes began to hurt him horribly,
so he mewed sadly; and Mrs. Tabby
White boxed his ears softly—as mother
cats do; <i>you</i> know how I mean! But
when she was asleep he took off the pink<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_9" id="Page_9"></SPAN></span>
shoes and bit them to pieces. And Nurse
slapped him for it. Poor Mrs. Tabby
White was very miserable when she saw
her son being slapped: for it is one thing
to box your son's ears (softly, as mother
cats do; <i>you</i> know how I mean), and quite
another to see another person do it—heavily,
as is the way with nursemaids.</p>
<p>"But the last and greatest effort Mrs.
Tabby White made to imitate human manners
was one Saturday night.</p>
<p>"She saw the human child have its bath
before the nursery fire, with hot water, pink
soap, dry towels, and much fussing, and
she said to herself, 'Why should I waste
hours every day in washing my children
with my little white paws and my little pink
tongue, when this human child can be made
clean in ten minutes with this big bath. If
I had more time I could learn to be cleverer,
and I should end by being the most wonderful<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_10" id="Page_10"></SPAN></span>
Cat in all the world.' So she sat,
and watched, and waited.</p>
<div class="figleft"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus008.png" width-obs="319" height-obs="400" alt=""Nurse dried the poor, dear, cruelly-used kittens a little."" title=""Nurse dried the poor, dear, cruelly-used kittens a little."" /> <span class="caption">"Nurse dried the poor, dear, cruelly-used kittens a little."</span></div>
<p>"When the human child was in bed and
asleep, Nurse went down to her supper,
leaving the bath to be cleared away later,
for it was a hot supper of baked onions and
toasted cheese, and if you don't go to that
supper directly it is ready, you may as well
not go at all, for it won't be worth eating—at
least so I have heard the kitchenmaid
say.</p>
<p>"Mrs. Tabby White waited till she heard
the last of Nurse's steps on the stairs below,
and then she put both her cat-children into
the tub, and washed them with rose-scented
soap and a Turkey sponge. At first they
thought it very good fun, but presently
the soap got in their eyes and they were
frightened of the sponge, and they cried,
mewing piteously, to be taken out. I
don't know how she could have done it, I<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_13" id="Page_13"></SPAN></span>
couldn't have treated a kitten of <i>mine</i> like
that.</p>
<p>"When she took them out, Mrs. Tabby
tried to dry them with the soft towel, but
somehow catskin is not so easy to dry
as child-skin, and the little cats began to
shiver, and moan: 'Oh, mother, we were
so nice and warm, and now we are so cold!
Why is it? What have we done? Were
we naughty?'</p>
<p>"'Drat the cats!' said Nurse, when she
came up from supper, and found Mrs.
Tabby White trying to warm her kittens
against her own comfortable fur; 'if they
haven't tumbled in the bath!'</p>
<p>"Nurse dried the poor, dear, cruelly-used
kittens a little (her hands were bigger than
Mrs. Tabby's, so she could do it better),
and put them in a basket with flannel, and
next day Tabby-Kit was quite well, though
rather ragged looking; but Brindle had<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_14" id="Page_14"></SPAN></span>
taken a chill, and for days he hung between
life and death. Poor Mrs. Tabby was like
a wild cat with anxiety, and when at last
Brindle was well again (or nearly, for he
always had a slight cough after that), Mrs.
Tabby White said to her children, 'My
darlings, I was wrong, I was a silly
old cat.'</p>
<p>"'No,' purred the cat-children, 'darling
mother, you were always the best of cats.'</p>
<p>"Mrs. Tabby kissed them both, for of
course any one would be pleased that her
children should think her the best of cats,
but in her heart she knew well enough
how silly she had been.</p>
<p>"Then she set about washing the kittens,
not with pink soap and white towel this
time, but with white paws and pink tongue
in the good old-fashioned way."<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_15" id="Page_15"></SPAN></span></p>
<hr style="width: 45%;" />
<p>"Thank you, mother," said all the kittens;
"what a nice horrible story."</p>
<p>"What is the moral?" asked the youngest
kitten but three.</p>
<p>"The moral," said Mrs. Buffy, "is, 'There
is such a thing as being too clever by half.'
I'm not sure about the story being true,
but I know the moral is. Why, it's nearly
tea-time. Come along, children, and get
your tea."</p>
<p>So they all crept quietly away to catch
the necessary mice, and the youngest was
so afraid of being too clever by half, that
she would never have caught a mouse at
all, if her mother had not boxed her ears—softly,
as mother cats do; you know
how I mean!</p>
<div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus009.png" width-obs="300" height-obs="46" alt="Mice running" title="Mice running" /></div>
<div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />