s for the young gentleman, who kept in the background
until they arrived. Then, being handsome and well-made, his new
clothes became him so well, that he looked as if he had been a marquis
all his days, and advanced with an air of respectful ease to offer his
thanks to his majesty.

The king received him courteously, and the princess admired him very
much. Indeed, so charming did he appear to her, that she hinted to her
father to invite him into the carriage with them, which, you may be
sure, the young man did not refuse. The cat, delighted at the success
of his scheme, went away as fast as he could, and ran so swiftly that
he kept a long way ahead of the royal carriage. He went on and on,
till he came to some peasants who were mowing in a meadow. "Good
people," said he, in a very firm voice, "the king is coming past here
shortly, and if you do not say that the field you are mowing belongs
to my lord the Marquis of Carabas, you shall all be chopped as small
as mince-meat."

So when the king drove by, and asked whose meadow it was where there
was such a splendid crop of hay, the mowers all answered, trembling,
that it belonged to my lord the Marquis of Carabas.

"You have very fine land, Marquis," said his majesty to the miller's
son; who bowed, and answered "that it was not a bad meadow, take it
altogether."

Then the cat came to a wheat-field, where the reapers were reaping
with all their might. He bounded in upon them: "The king is coming
past to-day, and if you do not tell him that this wheat belongs to my
lord the Marquis of Carabas, I will have you every one chopped as
small as mince-meat." The reapers, very much alarmed, did as they were
bid, and the king congratulated the Marquis upon possessing such
beautiful fields, laden with such an abundant harvest.

They drove on--the cat always running before and saying the same thing
to everybody he met, that they were to declare the whole country
belonged to his master; so that even the king was astonished at the
vast estate of my lord the Marquis of Carabas.

But now the cat arrived at a great castle where dwelt an Ogre, to whom
belonged all the land through which the royal equipage had been
driving. He was a cruel tyrant, and his tenants and servants were
terribly afraid of him, which accounted for their being so ready to
say whatever they were told to say by the cat, who had taken pains to
inform himself of all about the Ogre. So, putting on the boldest face
h