out of his eyes and
playing on his mouth.

'Ox,' she said, 'what is the way to be happy?'

'Do your duty,' said the Ox.

'Bother,' said the Cat, 'duty again! What is it, Ox?'

'Get your dinner,' said the Ox.

'But it is got for me, Ox; and I have nothing to do but to eat it.'

'Well, eat it, then, like me.'

'So I do; but I am not happy for all that.'

'Then you are a very wicked, ungrateful Cat.'

The Ox munched away. A Bee buzzed into a buttercup under the Cat's nose.

'I beg your pardon,' said the Cat, 'it isn't curiosity--what are you
doing?'

'Doing my duty; don't stop me, Cat.'

'But, Bee, what is your duty?'

'Making honey,' said the Bee.

'I wish I could make honey,' sighed the Cat.

'Do you mean to say you can't?' said the Bee. 'How stupid you must be.
What do you do, then?'

'I do nothing, Bee. I can't get anything to do.'

'You won't get anything to do, you mean, you lazy Cat! You are a
good-for-nothing drone. Do you know what we do to our drones? We kill
them; and that is all they are fit for. Good morning to you.'

'Well, I am sure,' said the Cat, 'they are treating me civilly; I had
better have stopped at home at this rate. Stroke my whiskers! heartless!
wicked! good-for-nothing! stupid! and only fit to be killed! This is a
pleasant beginning, anyhow. I must look for some wiser creatures than
these are. What shall I do? I know. I know where I will go.'

It was in the middle of the wood. The bush was very dark, but she found
him by his wonderful eye. Presently, as she got used to the light, she
distinguished a sloping roll of feathers, a rounded breast, surmounted
by a round head, set close to the body, without an inch of a neck
intervening. 'How wise he looks!' she said; 'What a brain! what a
forehead! His head is not long, but what an expanse! and what a depth of
earnestness!' The Owl sloped his head a little on one side; the Cat
slanted hers upon the other. The Owl set it straight again, the Cat did
the same. They stood looking in this way for some minutes; at last, in a
whispering voice, the Owl said, 'What are you who presume to look into
my repose? Pass on upon your way, and carry elsewhere those prying
eyes.'

'Oh, wonderful Owl,' said the Cat, 'you are wise, and I want to be wise;
and I am come to you to teach me.'

A film floated backwards and forwards over the Owl's eyes; it was his
way of showing that he was pleased.

'I have heard in our schoolroom,' went on the Cat