and purr and purr like a velvet cat.

The picnic simply shouted with glee. It was the kind of picnic which is always shouting with glee.

"Oh! Mother! Mother! Father! Father!" it called out. "Look at our Lion! Look at our Lion! We found him ourselves! He's ours."

And the sailor boy shouted,

"He'll roar for me, Mother!"

And the rest cried out one after another,

"He'll sit up and beg for me!"

"He'll carry me by my trousers!"

"He can play tag!"

"He'll show you his claws go in and out!"

"Mother, ask him to take you on his back to get a drink."

"May he go home and sleep with me, Mother?"

It was like a bedlam of skylarks let loose this time, and the Lion had to do so many tricks that only determination to show how Cozy he was kept up his strength. He was determined to prove to the Fathers and Mothers that he was Cozy.

And he did it.

From that time he was the Lion of the Village. He was invited everywhere. There never was a party without him. Birthday parties, garden parties, tea parties, wedding parties—he went to them all. His life was one round of gaiety.

He became most accomplished. He could do all the things Lions do in Hippodromes—and a great many more. The Little Little Girl gave him a flute for a present and he learned to play on it beautifully. When he had an evening at home he used to sit at his Cave door and play and sing. First he played and then he sang this——

He had composed it himself.

The next story I shall tell you is about my Spring Cleaning. That will show you how I have to work when the winter is over and how, if it were not for Me, things would never be swept up and made tidy for the summer. The primroses and violets would NEVER be wakened, or the Dormice called up, or anything. It IS a busy time, I can tell you.