prudence of Madam Puss. He praised her exceedingly, and accompanied her to a terrace which overlooked the sea.
The ships in which the cats were embarked were large pieces of cork, on which they sailed conveniently enough. The rats had joined together several egg-shells, and of these their navy consisted. The battle was cruelly obstinate. The rats flung themselves into the water, and swam much better than the cats, so that they were victors and vanquished alternately twenty times; but Minagrobis, admiral of the feline fleet, reduced the rattish race to the greatest despair. He devoured the general of their forces, an old rat, of great experience, who had been round the world three times, in capital ships, in which he was neither captain nor common sailor, but simply a lickspit.
White Cat would not permit the utter destruction of all these poor unfortunate creatures. She was an acute politician, and calculated that if there were no more rats or mice left in the country, her subjects would live in a state of idleness, which might become highly prejudicial to her. The Prince passed this year as he had the two preceding, that is to say, in hunting, fishing, or chess, at which White Cat played exceedingly well. He could not help occasionally questioning her anew as to the miraculous power by which she was enabled to speak. He asked her whether she was a Fairy, or whether she had been transformed into a Cat; but as she never said anything but what she chose, she also never made answers that were not perfectly agreeable to her, and consequently her replies consisted of a number of little words which signified nothing particular, so that he clearly perceived she was not inclined to make him a partaker of her secret.
Nothing runs away faster than time passed without trouble or sorrow, and if the Cat had not been careful to remember the day when it was necessary the Prince should return to Court, it is certain that he would have absolutely forgotten it. She informed him on the evening preceding it that it only depended on himself to take home with him one of the most beautiful Princesses in the world: that the hour to destroy the fatal work of the Fairies had at length arrived, and for that purpose he must resolve to cut off her head and her tail, and fling them quickly into the fire. "I!" exclaimed the Prince, "Blanchette!—My love!—I be so barbarous as to
