g away, teaching their
little ones every day; telling them to be good, and to do what they are
bid, and all that. Nobody ever tells me to do anything; if they do I
don't do it, and I am very good. I wonder whether I should be any better
if I minded more. I'll ask the Dog.'

'Dog,' said she, to a little fat spaniel coiled up on a mat like a
lady's muff with a head and tail stuck on to it, 'Dog, what do you make
of it all?'

The Dog faintly opened his languid eyes, looked sleepily at the Cat for
a moment, and dropped them again.

'Dog,' she said, 'I want to talk to you; don't go to sleep. Can't you
answer a civil question?'

'Don't bother me,' said the Dog, 'I am tired. I stood on my hind legs
ten minutes this morning before I could get my breakfast, and it hasn't
agreed with me.'

'Who told you to do it?' said the Cat.

'Why, the lady I have to take care of me,' replied the Dog.

'Do you feel any better for it, Dog, after you have been standing on
your legs?' asked she.

'Hav'n't I told you, you stupid Cat, that it hasn't agreed with me; let
me go to sleep and don't plague me.'

'But I mean,' persisted the Cat, 'do you feel improved, as the men call
it? They tell their children that if they do what they are told they
will improve, and grow good and great. Do you feel good and great?'

'What do I know?' said the Dog. 'I eat my breakfast and am happy. Let me
alone.'

'Do you never think, oh Dog without a soul! Do you never wonder what
dogs are, and what this world is?'

The Dog stretched himself, and rolled his eyes lazily round the room. 'I
conceive,' he said, 'that the world is for dogs, and men and women are
put into it to take care of dogs; women to take care of little dogs like
me, and men for the big dogs like those in the yard--and cats,' he
continued, 'are to know their place, and not to be troublesome.'

'They beat you sometimes,' said the Cat. 'Why do they do that? They
never beat me.'

'If they forget their places, and beat me,' snarled the Dog, 'I bite
them, and they don't do it again. I should like to bite you, too, you
nasty Cat; you have woke me up.'

'There may be truth in what you say,' said the Cat, calmly; 'but I think
your view is limited. If you listened like me you would hear the men say
it was all made for them, and you and I were made to amuse them.'

'They don't dare to say so,' said the Dog.

'They do, indeed,' said the Cat. 'I hear many things which you lose by
sleeping so