'Well, eat it, then, like me.'

'So I do; but I am not happy for all that.'

'Then you are a very wicked, ungrateful Cat.'

The Ox munched away. A Bee buzzed into a b.u.t.tercup under the Cat's nose.

'I beg your pardon,' said the Cat, 'it isn't curiosity--what are you doing?'

'Doing my duty; don't stop me, Cat.'

'But, Bee, what is your duty?'

'Making honey,' said the Bee.

'I wish I could make honey,' sighed the Cat.

'Do you mean to say you can't?' said the Bee. 'How stupid you must be.

What do you do, then?'

'I do nothing, Bee. I can't get anything to do.'

'You won't get anything to do, you mean, you lazy Cat! You are a good-for-nothing drone. Do you know what we do to our drones? We kill them; and that is all they are fit for. Good morning to you.'

'Well, I am sure,' said the Cat, 'they are treating me civilly; I had better have stopped at home at this rate. Stroke my whiskers! heartless!

wicked! good-for-nothing! stupid! and only fit to be killed! This is a pleasant beginning, anyhow. I must look for some wiser creatures than these are. What shall I do? I know. I know where I will go.'

It was in the middle of the wood. The bush was very dark, but she found him by his wonderful eye. Presently, as she got used to the light, she distinguished a sloping roll of feathers, a rounded breast, surmounted by a round head, set close to the body, without an inch of a neck intervening. 'How wise he looks!' she said; 'What a brain! what a forehead! His head is not long, but what an expanse! and what a depth of earnestness!' The Owl sloped his head a little on one side; the Cat slanted hers upon the other. The Owl set it straight again, the Cat did the same. They stood looking in this way for some minutes; at last, in a whispering voice, the Owl said, 'What are you who presume to look into my repose? Pa.s.s on upon your way, and carry elsewhere those prying eyes.'

'Oh, wonderful Owl,' said the Cat, 'you are wise, and I want to be wise; and I am come to you to teach me.'

A film floated backwards and forwards over the Owl's eyes; it was his way of showing that he was pleased.

'I have heard in our schoolroom,' went on the Cat, 'that you sate on the shoulder of Pallas, and she told you all about it.'

'And what would you know, oh, my daughter?' said the Owl.

'Everything,' said the Cat, 'everything. First of all, how to be happy.'

'Mice content you not, my child, even as they content not me,' said the Owl. 'It is good.'

'Mice, indeed!' said the Cat; 'no, Parlour Cats don't eat mice. I have better than mice, and no trouble to get it; but I want something more.'

'The body's meat is provided. You would now fill your soul.'

'I want to improve,' said the Cat. 'I want something to do. I want to find out what the creatures call my duty.'

'You would learn how to employ those happy hours of your leisure--rather how to make them happy by a worthy use. Meditate, oh Cat! meditate!

meditate!'

'That is the very thing,' said she. 'Meditate! that is what I like above all things. Only I want to know how: I want something to meditate about.

Tell me, Owl, and I will bless you every hour of the day as I sit by the parlour fire.'

'I will tell you,' answered the Owl, 'what I have been thinking of ever since the moon changed. You shall take it home with you and think about it too; and the next full moon you shall come again to me; we will compare our conclusions.'

'Delightful! delightful!' said the Cat. 'What is it? I will try this minute.'

'From the beginning,' replied the Owl, 'our race have been considering which first existed, the Owl or the egg. The Owl comes from the egg, but likewise the egg from the Owl.'

'Mercy!' said the Cat.

'From sunrise to sunset I ponder on it, oh Cat! When I reflect on the beauty of the complete Owl, I think that must have been first, as the cause is greater than the effect. When I remember my own childhood, I incline the other way.'

'Well, but how are we to find out?' said the Cat.

'Find out!' said the Owl. 'We can never find out. The beauty of the question is, that its solution is impossible. What would become of all our delightful reasonings, oh, unwise Cat! if we were so unhappy as to know?'

'But what in the world is the good of thinking about it, if you can't, oh Owl?'

'My child, that is a foolish question. It is good, in order that the thoughts on these things may stimulate wonder. It is in wonder that the Owl is great.'

'Then you don't know anything at all,' said the Cat. 'What did you sit on Pallas's shoulder for? You must have gone to sleep.'

'Your tone is over flippant, Cat, for philosophy. The highest of all knowledge is to know that we know nothing.'

The Cat made two great arches with her back and her tail.

'Bless the mother that laid you,' said she. 'You were dropped by mistake in a goose nest. You won't do. I don't know much, but I am not such a creature as you, anyhow. A great white thing!'

She straitened her body, stuck her tail up on end, and marched off with much dignity. But, though she respected herself rather more than before, she was not on the way to the end of her difficulties. She tried all the creatures she met without advancing a step. They had all the old story, 'Do your duty.' But each had its own, and no one could tell her what hers was. Only one point they all agreed upon--the duty of getting their dinner when they were hungry. The day wore on, and she began to think she would like hers. Her meals came so regularly at home that she scarcely knew what hunger was; but now the sensation came over her very palpably, and she experienced quite new emotions as the hares and rabbits skipped about her, or as she spied a bird upon a tree. For a moment she thought she would go back and eat the Owl--he was the most useless creature she had seen; but on second thought she didn't fancy he would be nice: besides that, his claws were sharp and his beak too.

Presently, however, as she sauntered down the path, she came on a little open patch of green, in the middle of which a fine fat Rabbit was sitting. There was no escape. The path ended there, and the bushes were so thick on each side that he couldn't get away except through her paws.

'Really,' said the Cat, 'I don't wish to be troublesome; I wouldn't do it if I could help it; but I am very hungry, I am afraid I must eat you.

It is very unpleasant, I a.s.sure you, to me as well as to you.'

The poor Rabbit begged for mercy.

'Well,' said she, 'I think it is hard; I do really--and, if the law could be altered, I should be the first to welcome it. But what can a Cat do? You eat the gra.s.s; I eat you. But, Rabbit, I wish you would do me a favour.'

'Anything to save my life,' said the Rabbit.

'It is not exactly that,' said the Cat; 'but I haven't been used to killing my own dinner, and it is disagreeable. Couldn't you die? I shall hurt you dreadfully if I kill you.'

'Oh!' said the Rabbit, 'you are a kind Cat; I see it in your eyes, and your whiskers don't curl like those of the cats in the woods. I am sure you will spare me.'

'But, Rabbit, it is a question of principle. I have to do my duty; and the only duty I have, as far as I can make out, is to get my dinner.'

'If you kill me, Cat, to do your duty, I sha'n't be able to do mine.'