I know why they called it Scratch : The usual questions were answered satisfactorily: but this time Hugh added one of his own invention—"Does the cat scratch?" The landlady looked round suspiciously, as if to make sure the cat was not listening, "I will not deceive you, gentlemen," she said. "It do scratch, but not without you pulls its whiskers! It'll never do it," she repeated slowly, with a visible effort to recall the exact words of some written agreement between herself and the cat, "without you pulls its whiskers!" "Much may be excused in a cat so treated," said Balbus, as they left the house and crossed to Number Seventy-three, leaving the landlady curtseying on the doorstep, and still murmuring to herself her parting words, as if they were a form of blessing, "—— not without you pulls its whiskers!" From The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Tangled Tale , by Lewis Carroll . Subscribe to TED . Subscribe to Talks at Goo