Page:The Pentamerone, or The Story of Stories.djvu/172

146 the more he earned. And Pippo, taking the cat, said, "Only see now what a pretty legacy my father has left me! I, who am not able to support myself, must now provide for two. Who ever beheld such a miserable inheritance?" But the cat, who overheard this lamentation, said to him, "You are grieving without need, and have more luck than sense; but you little know the good fortune in store for you, and that I am able to make you rich if I set about it." When Pippo heard this, he thanked her pussyship, stroked her three or four times on the back, and commended himself warmly to her. So the cat took compassion upon poor Gagliuso, and every morning, when the Sun, with the bait of light upon his golden hook, fishes for the shades of Night, she betook herself either to the shore of the Chiaja or to the Fish-rock, and catching a goodly grey mullet, or a fine dory, she bagged it, and carried it to the king, and said, "My lord Gagliuso, your Majesty's most humble slave, sends you this fish with all reverence, and says, 'A small present to a great lord.'" Then the king with a joyful face, as one usually shows to those who bring a gift, answered the cat, "Tell this lord, whom I do not know, that I thank him heartily."

At another time the cat would run to the marshes or