just so stories the cat that walked by himself

Why should I not go too and see and look and come away at my own liking.' So he slipped after Wild Dog softly, very softly, and hid himself where he could hear everything.

But when he had gone a little way the Cat said to himself, 'All places are alike to me. 'Then we can never be friends again,' said Wild Dog, and he trotted off to the Cave. 'I am the Cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to me. Wild Dog lifted up his wild nose and smelled the smell of roast mutton, and said, 'I will go up and see and look, and say for I think it is good. Then Wild Horse stamped with his wild foot and said, 'O my Friends and O my Enemies, why have the Man and the Woman made that great light in that great Cave, and what harm will it do us?' Out in the Wet Wild Woods all the wild animals gathered together where they could see the light of the fire a long way off, and they wondered what it meant. She made the First Singing Magic in the world. She took the bone of the shoulder of mutton-the big fat blade-bone-and she looked at the wonderful marks on it, and she threw more wood on the fire, and she made a Magic. Then the Man went to sleep in front of the fire ever so happy but the Woman sat up, combing her hair. That night, Best Beloved, they ate wild sheep roasted on the hot stones, and flavoured with wild garlic and wild pepper and wild duck stuffed with wild rice and wild fenugreek and wild coriander and marrow-bones of wild oxen and wild cherries, and wild grenadillas. She picked out a nice dry Cave, instead of a heap of wet leaves, to lie down in and she strewed clean sand on the floor and she lit a nice fire of wood at the back of the Cave and she hung a dried wild-horse skin, tail-down, across the opening of the Cave and she said, 'Wipe you feet, dear, when you come in, and now we'll keep house.' He didn't even begin to be tame till he met the Woman, and she told him that she did not like living in his wild ways. He walked by himself, and all places were alike to him.

But the wildest of all the wild animals was the Cat. The Dog was wild, and the Horse was wild, and the Cow was wild, and the Sheep was wild, and the Pig was wild-as wild as wild could be-and they walked in the Wet Wild Woods by their wild lones. HEAR and attend and listen for this befell and behappened and became and was, O my Best Beloved, when the Tame animals were wild.

Just so stories the cat that walked by himself