` Oh , how stupid of me ! ' he cried , as the cat sprang up angrily , ` let us go at once and search for it . It ca n't really have fallen very far . ' But though they searched that day and the next , and the next after that , they never found it , because it never came down . After the loss of his ball the cat refused to live with the lion any longer , but wandered away to the north , always hoping he might meet with his ball again . But months passed , and years passed , and though he travelled over hundreds of miles , he never saw any traces of it . At length , when he was getting quite old , he came to a place unlike any that he had ever seen before , where a big river rolled right to the foot of some high mountains . The ground all about the river bank was damp and marshy , and as no cat likes to wet its feet , this one climbed a tree that rose high above the water , and thought sadly of his lost ball , which would have helped him out of this horrible place . Suddenly he saw a beautiful ball , for all the world like his own , dangling from a branch of the tree he was on . He longed to get at it ; but was the branch strong enough to bear his weight ? It was no use , after all he had done , getting drowned in the water . However , it could do no harm , if he was to go a little way ; he could always manage to get back somehow . So he stretched himself at full length upon the branch , and wriggled his body cautiously along . To his delight it seemed thick and stout . Another movement , and , by stretching out his paw , he would be able to draw the string towards him , when the branch gave a loud crack , and the cat made haste to wriggle himself back the way he had come . But when cats make up their minds to do anything they generally DO it ; and this cat began to look about to see if there was really no way of getting at his ball . Yes ! there was , and it was much surer than the other , though rather more difficult . Above the bough where the ball was hung was another bough much thicker , which he knew could not break with his weight ; and by holding on tight to this with all his four paws , he could just manage to touch the ball with his tail . He would thus be able to whisk the ball to and fro till , by-and-by , the string would become quite loose , and it would fall to the ground .
It might take some time , but the lion 's little brother was patient , XXXXX most cats .
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