The animals now began to look forward to the evening story-telling—the way people do to regular habits that are pleasant. And for the next night they arranged among themselves before-hand that it should be Dab-Dab's turn to tell a tale.  
After they were all seated on the the her feathers and in a very voice began:
 
"On the of Puddleby-on-the-Marsh there lives a farmer who swears to this day that his cat can understand every word he says. It isn't true, but both the farmer and his wife think it is. And I am now going to tell you how they came to get that idea.
 
"Once when the Doctor was away in Scotland, looking for fossils, he left me behind to take charge of the house. The old horse in the stable complained to me one night that the rats were eating up all his corn. While I was walking around the stable, trying to think out what I should do about it I spied an enormous white Persian cat stalking about the . Now, I myself have no love for cats. For one thing, they eat ducklings, and for another, they always seem to me sort of sneaky things. So I ordered this one to get off the Doctor's property. To my surprise, she behaved very politely—said she didn't know she was and turned to leave. Then I felt sort of guilty, knowing the Doctor liked to be to every kind of animal, and, after all, the cat wasn't doing any harm there. So I overtook her and told her that if she didn't kill anything on the place she could come and go as she pleased.
 
"Well, we got chatting, the way people do, and I found out that the cat lived at a farmer's house about a quarter of a mile down the Oxenthorpe Road. Then I walked part of the way home with her, still chatting, and I found that she was a very agreeable individual. I told her about the rats in the stable and the difficulty I had in making them behave, because the Doctor wouldn't allow any one to kill them. And she said, if I wished, she'd sleep in the stable a few nights and the rats would probably leave as soon as they smelled her around.
 
"This she did, and the results were excellent. The rats departed in a body and the old horse's corn-bin was left undisturbed. Then she disappeared and for several nights I saw nothing of her. So one evening I thought it would be only decent of me to call at her farm down the Oxenthorpe Road, to thank her.
 
"I went to her farm and found her in the far............