THE THREE CATS[29]
A very curious thing happened to me at half-past four, yesterday. Three visitors came knocking at my door, begging me to let them in. And when I opened the door, who do you think they were?
You’ll never guess.
Why, they were three cats! Wasn’t it curious? However, they all looked so cross and disagreeable that I took up the first thing I could lay my hand on (which happened to be the rolling pin) and knocked them all down as flat as pancakes!
“If you come knocking at my door,” I said, “I shall come knocking at your heads.”
That was fair, wasn’t it?
Of course I didn’t leave them lying flat on the ground, like dried flowers: no, I picked them up, and I was as kind as I could be to them. I lent them the portfolio for a bed—they wouldn’t have been comfortable in a real bed, you know: they were too thin—but they were quite happy between the sheets of blotting paper—and each of them had a pen-wiper for a pillow. Well, then I went to bed: but first I lent them the three dinner-bells to ring if they wanted anything in the night.
You know I have three dinner-bells—the first (which is the largest) is rung when dinner is nearly ready; the second (which is rather larger) is rung when it is quite ready; and the third (which is as large as the other two put together) is rung all the time I am at dinner. And I told them they must ring if they happened to want anything. And, as they rung all the bells all night, I suppose they did want something or other, only I was too sleepy to attend to them.
In the morning I gave them some rat-tail jelly and buttered mice for breakfast and they were as discontented as they could be. And, do you know, when I had gone out for a walk, they got all my books out of the bookcase, and opened them on the floor to be ready for me to read. They opened them at page 50, because they thought that would be a nice useful page to begin at. It was rather unfortunate, though: because they took my bottle of gum and tried to gum pictures upon the ceiling (which they thought would please me). They accidentally spilt a quantity of it all over the books. So when they were shut up and put by, the leaves all stuck together, and I can never read page 50 again in any of them!
However, they meant it very kindly, so I wasn’t angry. I gave them each a spoonful of ink as a treat; but they were ungrateful for that and made the most dreadful faces. But, of course, as it was given them for a treat, they had to drink it. One of them has turned black since: it was a white cat to begin with.
They wanted some boiled pelican, but, of course, I knew it wouldn’t be good for them. So all I said was “Go to Agnes Hughes, and if it’s really good for you she’ll give you some.”
Then I shook hands with them all, and wished them good-bye, and drove them up the chimney. They seemed very sorry to go.
[29] This fascinating little fantasy ran through a series of letters which Lewis Carroll wrote to two little friends of his named Agnes and Amy Hughes. Without altering a word of the original and merely by extracting the extraneous matter, the editor has been able to reproduce the complete story, and to present what is, in effect, a new “wonder-tale” in miniature by the author of “Alice in Wonderland,” which, in his opinion, is in his best and most characteristic vein.