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 mince-meat."

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 all together; for the
Cat's threats had made them terribly afraid.

"Truly a fine estate," said the King to the Marquis of Carabas.

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

The Master Cat, who still went 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 mince-meat."

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 again congratulated the
Marquis.

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 honour 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."

"This 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 ill-suited for walking
upon the tiles. A little while after, when Puss saw that the Ogre had
resumed his natural form, he came down, and owned he had been very
much frightened.

"