Fairy Tales for Young Readers by E. Nesbit

stone, holding the strings of the bag in his paws.
    The silly bunnies saw and sniffed, and sniffed and longed, and longed and tasted, and two, bolder than the others, went head first into the bag, and plunged their greedy, nibbling noses right into the heap of bran.
    That was what Puss had been waiting for. He pulled the strings, the strings drew up the mouth of the bag, and there were two fine fat rabbits kicking and struggling inside.
    Michau killed each with a quick bite at the back of the neck, and then set out for the King’s palace. When he got there he went to the side door, and asked to see the King, and all the handmaids and footmen and scullions and turn-spits laughed aloud at the very idea.
    â€œ You see the King?” said the cook; “you’re much more likely to see the bottom of the moat, my fine fellow.”
    â€œDo you think so,” said the cat. “I shouldn’t be lonely there, anyhow—for you’d all be thrown after me as soon as the King knew that that was how you treated the messenger of my Lord the Marquis of Carabas.”
    â€œOh, if you come from a marquis,” said the cook, “that’s quite a different pair of shoes. Raoul, show the gentleman up.”
    So one of the footmen who had been loudest in jeering at Michau had to lead him to the King’s presence.
    â€œA gift, your Majesty,” said the cat, bowing low before the throne, “from your faithful servant my Lord the Marquis of Carabas.”
    â€œWhy, I never heard of him,” said the King. “But then it’s true that I have not long moved into my present palace.”
    â€œOh,” said the cat carelessly, “my Lord Marquis owns a good deal of land not so very far away.”
    â€œIndeed,” said the King.

    â€œThank your master, my fine cat, and be sure you don’t leave the palace without a good meal.”
    Next day the cat caught a brace of partridges, and took them to the palace; next day it was pheasants. He always had a good meal before leaving, and the folks in the kitchen got to look for his coming, for Michau was the best of company, and could tell more stories, and more amusing ones, than any cat I ever heard of.
    But Yvo said, “This is all very well for you—you are getting as fat as butter with all these free meals at the palace; but I get nothing but my brothers’ leavings, and even those I shan’t get much longer. They are growing tired of waiting for you to make my fortune.”
    â€œDon’t you be so tiresome,” said the cat. “All the time I’m eating I’m picking up bits of news from the servants, and presently I shall hear something that I can use to advance your fortunes. But if you worry I won’t do anything at all—so there.”
    â€œVery well,” said Yvo, “then I won’t worry.”
    And the very next day, as the cat sat in the King’s kitchen, happy in the good company of a venison pasty and a wooden bowl of cider, he heard news that made him swallow down the cider at one gulp, leave the best of the pasty, and run all the way home.
    â€œCome along, master,” the cat cried to Yvo, who was half asleep in the mill-house, “the King and the Princess Dulcibella are driving out in their coach today, and they are to go along by the river-side. So come quickly.”
    â€œIt won’t do me much good to see kings and princesses,” said Yvo; but he followed the cat all the same.
    And when they got to the river, that runs smooth and shallow between two rows of pollarded grey willows, the cat said:
    â€œNow undress, and go into the water up to your neck. You’re a pretty fellow enough; it’s your clothes that spoil you, especially since you cut up your best blue shirt to make my game-bag.”

    The water was cold, and Yvo could not swim, but he did as Michau told him, and the cat put his clothes in the mouth of an otter’s den, and kicked a turf in