irst time too he had seen a "Puss in
Boots." "Is it true, most wonderful ogre," said Puss, "that you can
change yourself into any creature you please?" "Quite true, as you shall
see," said the ogre, and he changed himself into a lion, and roared so
terribly, that the cat climbed up the wall out of his way. Then the ogre
resumed his own ugly shape, and laughed at puss's fear. "It was very
surprising," said the cat; "you are of such a grand size that I do not
wonder you could become a lion--but could you change yourself into some
very small animal?" "You shall see," said the stupid vain ogre, and he
turned into a mouse. Directly puss saw him in that shape, he darted at
him and eat him up. The ogre quite deserved it, for he had eaten many
men himself. Then puss made haste back to his master, and said, "Come
and bathe in the river, and when the king comes by, do exactly as I tell
you, for I see his carriage." The miller's son obeyed his friend the
cat, undressed and jumped into the water, and cunning puss ran away with
his clothes and hid them under a large stone. By-and-bye the king
drove by with his daughter. Puss began to call very loud "Help, help! or
my lord Marquis de Carrabas will be drowned." The king stopped the coach
directly, and asked what was the matter. Puss answered, that while his
master was bathing, some thieves had stolen his clothes, and that
therefore the marquis could not come out of the water. The king luckily
had a dress suit with him, so he sent it by a servant to the Marquis,
and desired him to accept a seat in the royal coach, and he would drive
him home.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

The miller's son looked very well in his fine clothes, and the king was
pleased with his appearance. Puss directed the coachman to drive to the
late ogre's castle, and then he ran on before. Coming to a large field
in which reapers were at work, he said, "If the king asks you to whom
these fields belong, you must say, to the Marquis de Carrabas, or you
shall all be chopped as small as mincemeat." The men were so astonished
at hearing a cat talk, that they dared not refuse; so when the king came
by and asked, whose fields are these? they said, "they belong to the
Marquis de Carrabas." Next puss came to some meadows with shepherds and
flocks of sheep, and said the same to them. So when the king asked them,
whose flocks are these? they answered, those of the Marquis de Carrabas.

[Illustration]

Puss ran on all