ite overjoyed to see his
project begin to succeed, marched on before, and, meeting with some
countrymen, who were mowing a meadow, he said to them:

"Good people, you who are mowing, if you do not tell the King that
the meadow you mow belongs to my Lord Marquis of Carabas, you shall be
chopped as small as herbs for the pot."

The King did not fail asking of the mowers to whom the meadow they were
mowing belonged.

"To my Lord Marquis of Carabas," answered they altogether, for the Cat's
threats had made them terribly afraid.

"You see, sir," said the Marquis, "this is a meadow which never fails to
yield a plentiful harvest every year."

The Master Cat, who went still on before, met with some reapers, and
said to them:

"Good people, you who are reaping, if you do not tell the King that all
this corn belongs to the Marquis of Carabas, you shall be chopped as
small as herbs for the pot."

The King, who passed by a moment after, would needs know to whom all
that corn, which he then saw, did belong.

"To my Lord Marquis of Carabas," replied the reapers, and the King was
very well pleased with it, as well as the Marquis, whom he congratulated
thereupon. The Master Cat, who went always before, said the same words
to all he met, and the King was astonished at the vast estates of my
Lord Marquis of Carabas.

Monsieur Puss came at last to a stately castle, the master of which was
an ogre, the richest had ever been known; for all the lands which the
King had then gone over belonged to this castle. The Cat, who had taken
care to inform himself who this ogre was and what he could do, asked
to speak with him, saying he could not pass so near his castle without
having the honor of paying his respects to him.

The ogre received him as civilly as an ogre could do, and made him sit
down.

"I have been assured," said the Cat, "that you have the gift of being
able to change yourself into all sorts of creatures you have a mind to;
you can, for example, transform yourself into a lion, or elephant, and
the like."

"That is true," answered the ogre very briskly; "and to convince you,
you shall see me now become a lion."

Puss was so sadly terrified at the sight of a lion so near him that he
immediately got into the gutter, not without abundance of trouble and
danger, because of his boots, which were of no use at all to him in
walking upon the tiles. A little while after, when Puss saw that the
ogre had resumed his natural for