“That I will gladly, master!” said Gobbolino in delight, so the showman’s wife dressed him up in a paper ruff and a blue jacket and popped him into the striped show-box with Punch and Judy and the policeman and the baby.
At first these were very ready to be jealous of him and to dislike him, but when they saw how modest Gobbolino was, how sweet-tempered, and how eager to ask:“Should Dog Toby act like this? Or like this?” they soon became friendly in return, and it was the gayest company in the land that set forth again presently to entertain the next village they could find.
Crowds gathered the moment that the striped show-box came into sight:
“Here’s the Punch and Judy! Here’s the Punch and Judy!”
Dandy the showman would halt on the village green and set up the box; soon Punch and Judy were at their tricks and the crowd were roaring with laughter, but it was always the dog Toby who was asked for again and again:“Toby! Toby! Show us Dog Toby! Oh, what a clever fellow he is, and what beautiful blue eyes he has!”
Gobbolino acted so well and entered into his part so eagerly that there was always a whole capful of silver at the end of the show.
The showman’s children had new shoes, his wife wore bracelets, and the showman himself wore a yellow waistcoat.
“And all thanks to you, my little friend!” he would say affectionately, rubbing Gobbolino under the ears. “What do you say to joining the show for good – eh? A cat might have a worse home, after all.”
“I will gladly stay with you for ever, kind master!” Gobbolino replied at once, for strange as were his new surroundings after the luxury of the palace, he found his new life as pleasant as he could wish for.
He enjoyed watching the crowds gather as the striped Punch and Judy went from village to village. He enjoyed the grins that widened on the children’s faces when he and Punch popped up in the box. He loved to see the careworn faces of the old men and women, the worried faces of mothers, break into smiles as they forgot their troubles in following his tricks.
“Really there is nothing so pleasant as making people happy!” said Gobbolino. “I shall be perfectly content to stay here for ever – Gobbolino the performing cat.”
He often wished the little princess could watch his acting. He had secret hopes that one day the showman might find his way to the boarding-school, or to the orphanage gates, or even to the nursery of the little brothers, and meanwhile he was very happy, particularly in the evenings when the show-people put up their little tents round a blazing campfire and Gobbolino sat peacefully beside it, his paws tucked under his chest, as content as the sleekest tabby on a kitchen hearth.
“At last I have found my home!” he said to himself. “Who would ever have believed it would be such a strange one? But what matter? For here I am.”
One day they came to a village that was less pleasant than the rest.
The houses were grey and dirty. No flowers grew in the gardens, which were full of weeds. The street was littered with rubbish, while the pond on the village green was thick with duckweed and slime.
Nobody came out to greet the Punch and Judy show when the showman put up his striped box on the green.
A few children, slouching home from school, stared rudely but went home to tell their parents, for just as the showman was about to move on, a few people began to straggle up and stood about in little groups to watch the show.
The showman would willingly have left such disagreeable people behind, but being a merry-hearted man himself, he thought he had better do all he could to cheer their misery, so he set Gobbolino beating a drum and drew up the curtain.
The children and their parents watching did not clap their hands as most children did.
Instead, they began to make rude remarks.
“Punch has cracked his nose! Judy’s pinny is torn! Look at Toby’s face! Whoever saw a black dog Toby before?”
“The old show-box could do with a clean! And the showman too, I daresay!”
“And Dog Toby, he’s black enough!” shouted someone else.
All the children laughed, but it was very disagreeable laughter.
Suddenly a voice from the back called out:
“That isn’t a dog at all! It’s a cat!”
Gobbolino bristled all over with rage, and the voice called out again:
“It’s a cat, I tell you! And what is more it is a witch’s cat, or I am very much mistaken!”
The crowd turned round to stare at the ugly old crone who stood at the back, leaning on her stick and croaking out her words with an ugly leer.
“Old Granny Dobbin ought to know! She’s a witch herself!” cried the children in chorus.
The showman began to pull down the little curtain to close the show, but the children would not be quieted.
“A witch’s cat! A witch’s cat!” they sang. “Take off his ruff and let us see the witch’s cat!”
They made a path for old Granny Dobbin and pushed her to the front.
“Speak to the witch’s cat, Granny!” they shouted. “Make him speak to you! Make some magic for us!”
“Ha! Ha!” croaked the old woman, pointing her finger at Gobbolino. “I know you! Grimalkin was your mother! Your little sister Sootica is apprenticed to a witch, way up in the Hurricane Mountains!You a dog Toby, indeed! Ho! Ho! Ho!”
The fathers and mothers of the children, standing behind, grew threatening, and shook their fists at the showman.
“How dare you bring a witch’s kitten into our village?” they cried. “How dare you harm our children so? They might be turned into mice, or green caterpillars, or toads! If it hadn’t been for old Granny Dobbin here, goodness knows what might have happened! Away with you directly!”
“Out of the village! Chase them out of the village!” clamoured the children, picking up sticks and stones, and they all became so angry and pressing that the showman lost no time in packing up his box and preparing to depart.
Gobbolino, his ruff taken off, did all he could to explain himself to the angry villagers, but nobody would listen to him except old Granny Dobbin.
“It’s no good, my poor simpleton!” she said when he had finished his story. “Nobody will ever keep you for long. Once a witch’s cat, always a witch’s cat. You will never find the home of your dreams while your eyes are blue and sparks come out of your whiskers.”
“I have met plenty of kind people in the world!” said Gobbolino stoutly. “I feel sure that one day I shall find the home I am looking for.”
“Never! Never! Never!” said the old hag. “Today or tomorrow you will realize I am telling you the truth! A kitchen hearth and a cosy fireside! Ha! Ha! Ha! That you will never know, witch’s kitten!”
Gobbolino’s beautiful blue eyes filled with tears, but there was no time to stay and ponder over the witch’s words, for the showman had shouldered his box and was striding up the village street with a pack of village children at his heels, all jeering and booing in the most unpleasant fashion.
They kept this up all the way to the next village, so that the showman dared not stop there, although it was quite a pleasant place, but had to trudge on all the weary miles to the next, by which time darkness had fallen and it was time to camp for the night.
It was pleasant to awaken to bright sunlight shining on whitewashed cottages and gardens gay with flowers.
The children were clean and rosy-cheeked in their pretty pinafores. The showman was surprised to see them hanging back as he set up his box on the green.
“Won’t you come and look?” he invited them.
“We’ve heard you have a witch’s cat instead of a dog Toby!” they told him, with their fingers in their mouths. “Our mothers said it would hurt us, and our fathers told us to go straight to school. We mustn’t stop.”
So they took hands and ran away. There was nobody left to watch the Punch and Judy, and soon the showman packed up again and went on his way.
It was the same at the next village, and the next and the next. The word had gone before, as swift as the wind,“The showman has a witch’s cat!” and nobody would come to see.