?" he said; then,
catching sight of the secluded cat, he stooped, crying, "Where is the
coffee?"

The cat sobbed audibly. "Some one must have come into the kitchen while
I ran out to look at the King!" he gasped, for there seemed to him no
way out of the scrape but by telling a plausible untruth. "Some one must
have come into the kitchen and stolen it!" And with that, choking upon
the handle of the mill, which projected into his throat, he burst into
inarticulate sobs.

[Illustration: "THE CAT WAS FEELING DECIDEDLY UNWELL"]

The cook, who was, in truth, a very kind-hearted man, sought to reassure
the poor cat. "There; it is unfortunate, very; but do not weep; thieves
thrive in kings' houses!" he said, and, stooping, he began to stroke the
drooping cat's back to show that he held the weeping creature blameless.

Sooty Will's heart leaped into his throat.

[Illustration: "IT SEEMED AS IF EVERYTHING HAD GONE WRONG"]

"Oh, oh!" he half gasped, "oh, oh! If he rubs his great hand down my
back he will feel the corners of the coffee-mill through my ribs as sure
as fate! Oh, oh! I am a gone cat!" And with that, in an agony of
apprehension lest his guilt and his falsehood be thus presently
detected, he humped up his back as high in the air as he could, so that
the corners of the mill might not make bumps in his sides and that the
mill might thus remain undiscovered.

[Illustration: "'WHERE IS THE COFFEE?' SAID THE COOK"]

But, alas! he forgot that coffee-mills turn. As he humped up his back
to cover his guilt, the coffee-mill inside rolled over, and, as it
rolled, began to grind--_rr-rr-rr-rr-rr-rr-rr-rr-rr-rr!_

"Oh, oh! you have swallowed the mill!" cried the cook.

[Illustration "OUT STEPPED THE GENIUS THAT LIVED UNDER THE GREAT
OVENS"]

"No, no," cried the cat; "I was only thinking aloud."

At that out stepped the Genius that Lived under the Great Ovens, and,
with his finger pointed at the cat, said in a frightful voice, husky
with wood-ashes: "Miserable and pusillanimous beast! By telling a
falsehood to cover a wrong you have only made bad matters worse. For
betraying man's kindness to cover your shame, a curse shall be upon you
and all your kind until the end of the world. Whenever men stroke you in
kindness, remembrance of your guilt shall make you hump up your back
with shame, as you did to avoid being found out; and in order that the
reason for this curse shall never be forgotten, whenever man is kind