No, if I couldn't tell you before, I certainly must not attempt now
to describe the Griffin's behaviour when he found the Princess thus
snatched from his jaws. He went grunting and bellowing and
screaming along; and just as he was stopping to take breath he
heard someone roaring with laughter, and saw a little yellow man
sitting on the top bough of a tree.
"Are you laughing at ME?" said the Dreadful Griffin (he was so
angry that he was quite polite). And the little man said quite as
politely that he certainly WAS.
"Why?" said the Dreadful Griffin, still fearfully polite.
"Because you're such a green Griffin," said the yellow man; and he
screamed with laughter again--"I know all about it, you've blued
the cats and now the Princess has greened you. She's turned into a
flea, and you still want to eat her, and it never occurred to you,
you green old grampus of a Griffin, that fleas like CATS. I
suppose the Princess flea wouldn't jump on to a tabby kitten, and
you couldn't swallow the kitten--oh dear, no--of course not . . .
."
But the Griffin was gone. He went to the Zoo, found a tabby
kitten, though they are rare in that country, and flew back with it
to the Princess's room.
He waited half an hour and then swallowed the kitten at one gulp;
but he instantly burst in four pieces, for the fluffy kitten
tickled his digestive organs so much that they cracked his sides
and he died; and the flea and the kitten came out quite unhurt,
only a little damp.
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