ONCE upon a time there were three little kittens who set out to seek their fortunes. The first kitten found a big barn. “Ah,” he said, “this is a good enough fortune for me.” And he stayed there, and the rats and the mice who lived in the barn were very much annoyed. And the second kitten walked in at the dairy door, and the dairymaid said: “You pretty tabby thing, you shall stay with me.”

“That’s good enough fortune,” said the kitten, and he lives on cream to this day, and he is so fat that he is quite round.

But our black cat (who was the third kitten) was more adventurous. He was running after a young sparrow, and not looking where he was going, so he fell plump into a well, and there would certainly have been an end of him, but that a good-sized Fairy, who lived in that well, and happened to want a cat, pulled him out of the water, and helped him to scramble up on to a ledge in the well-side.

“Now,” said he, “will you be my horse and let me ride on you on fine nights?”

“Yes,” mewed the kitten, shivering; “if I must, I must.”

Then the Fairy opened her front door, which was in the side of the well, and took the wet kitten into her palace, where there was a blazing fairy fire. Fairy servants came and dried the kitten, and gave him warm milk to drink.

“Ah,” said the kitten, “you are something like a Fairy. I will be your horse with pleasure.”

“That’s better,” said the Fairy. “The willing horse does the most work, but he gets the most pay too. You shall never be cold, or hungry, or frightened again.”

And she sent the kitten home at once by fairy telegraph.

That’s why our black cat sleeps all day. He has to go out all night for the Fairy to ride him. He seems just like an ordinary cat: to look at him, you’d never think he was the Fairy’s horse. But he is.

E. Nesbit.