"When you have done talking amongst yourselves," said the cat, "would
you tell me where you met His Majesty?"

"Nothing will I tell you," said the man, "until I hear your own name
from you."

"My name," said the cat, "is Quick-to-Grab, and well you should know
it."

"Not a word will we tell you," said the woman, "until we hear what the
King of the Cats is doing in Ireland. Is he bringing wars and rebellions
into the country?"

"Wars and rebellions,--no, ma'am," said Quick-to-Grab, "but deliverance
from oppression. Why are the cats of the country lean and lazy and
covered with ashes? It is because the cat that goes outside the house in
the sunlight, to hunt or to play, is made to suffer with the loss of an
eye."

"And who makes them suffer with the loss of an eye?" said the woman.
"One whose reign is nearly over now," said Quick-to-Grab. "But tell me
where you saw His Majesty?"

"No," said the man. "No," said the woman, "for we don't like your
impertinence. Back with you to the hearthstone, and watch the mouse-hole
for us."

Quick-to-Grab walked straight out of the door.

"May no prosperity come to this house," said he, "for denying me when I
asked where the King of the Cats was pleased to speak to you."

But he put his ear to the door when he went outside and he heard the
woman say,--

"The horse will tell him that we saw the King of the Cats a mile this
side of the Giant's Causeway." (That was a mistake. The horse could
not have told it at all, because horses never know the language that is
spoken in houses--only cats know it fully and dogs know a little of it.)

Quick-to-Grab now knew where the King of the Cats might be found. He
went creeping by hedges, loping across fields, bounding through woods,
until he came under the branch in the forest where the King of the
Cats rested, his whiskers standing round his face the breadth of a
dinner-dish.

When he came-under the branch Quick-to-Grab mewed a little in Egyptian,
which is the ceremonial language of the Cats. The King of the Cats came
to the end of the branch.

"Who are you, vassal?" said he in Phoenician.

"A humble retainer of my lord," said Quick-to-Grab in High-Pictish (this
is a language very suitable to cats but it is only their historians who
now use it).

They continued their conversation in Irish.

"What sign shall I show the others that will make them know you are the
King of the Cats?" said Quick-to-Grab.

The King of the Cats c