David turned round. All the cats had begun licking themselves again, except a large tabby, only instead of being black and brown, it was the colour of apricot jam and poppies. ‘Was it you who spoke?’ said David. ‘Set to partners!’ said the tabby, and they all began dancing again. ‘Shoo, you silly things,’ said David, stamping again. ‘I don’t want to stop your dancing, except just to be told where I’m to go, and what I’m to do if I’m hungry.’ The dancing stopped again. ‘There is a pot of mouse-marmalade somewhere,’ said the tabby, ‘only you mustn’t take more than a very little bit. It’s got to last till February.’ ‘But I don’t like mouse-marmalade,’ said David. ‘I never said you did,’ said the tabby. ‘Where’s the cook?’ ‘Gone to buy some new whiskers,’ said another. ‘She put them too close to the fire, which accounts for the smell of burning.’ ‘Then all that can be done is to set to partners, and hope for the best,’ said the tabby. ‘If any one dances again,’ said David, ‘before you tell me the way, and where I shall find a shop with some proper food in it, not mousey, I shall turn on the electric light.’ ‘Fiddle-de-dee!’ said the tabby, and they all began singing ‘Hey diddle-diddle The cat and the fiddle.’ at the top of their voices. David was getting vexed with them all, and he looked about for the electric light. But there were no switches by the door, as there ought to have been, but only a row of bottles which he knew came out of his father’s laboratory. But the stopper in one of them was loose, and a fizzing noise came out of it. He listened to it a minute, with his ear close to it, and heard it whispering, ‘_It’s me! it’s me! it’s me!_’ ‘And when he’s got, it, he doesn’t know what to do with it!’ said the tabby contemptuously. David hadn’t the slightest idea. He was only sure that the bottle had something to do with the electric light, and he took it up and began shaking it, as Nannie did to his medicine bottle. To his great delight, he saw that, as he shook it, the cats grew fainter and fainter, and the passage lighter and lighter. The tabby spoke to him in a tremulous voice. ‘You’re shocking us frightfully,’ she said. ‘Please, don’t. You may have all the mouse-marmalade as soon as the cook comes back with her whiskers. She’s been gone a long time. And if you don’t like it, you really know where everything else is. There’s the garden outside, and then the lake, and then the village. It’s all just as usual, except that everything is real here. But whatever you do, don’t shock us any more.’ [Illustration: David shakes the bottle at the cats] The passage had grown quite bright by now, and there were only a few of the very strongest cats left. So, as he was a kind boy, he put down the bottle again, which began fizzing and whispering: ‘_Pleased to have met you: pleased to have met you: pleased to have met you._’