CHAPTER X

THE HISTORY OF THE SEVEN YOUNG CATS

The seven young cats set off on their travels with great delight and rapacity. But, on coming to the top of a high hill, they perceived at a long distance off a clangle-wangle (or, as it is more properly written, clangel-wangel); and, in spite of the warning they had had, they ran straight up to it.

(Now, the clangle-wangles are most dangerous and delusive beasts, and by no means commonly to be met with. They live in the water as well as on land, using their long tails as a sail when in the former element. Their speed is extreme, but their habits of life are domestic and superfluous, and their general demeanor pensive and pellucid. On summer evenings they may sometimes be observed near the Lake Pipple-popple, standing on their heads, and humming their national melodies. They subsist entirely on vegetables, excepting when they eat veal or mutton, or pork or beef, or fish or saltpetre.)

The moment the clangle-wangle saw the seven young cats approach, he ran away; and as he ran straight on for four months, and the cats, though they continued to run, could never overtake him, they all gradually _died_ of fatigue and exhaustion, and never afterward recovered.

And this was the end of the seven young cats.