When the boy and his parents arrived at the temple, the priest asked the boy several intricate questions. The priest was astonished at the boy’s keen understanding and the imaginative answers which he gave. Then the old priest agreed to take the boy as an acolyte, with the understanding that the boy would obey him in everything. The boy tried very hard to obey and he learned many things, but he had one failing. When he should have been studying his lessons on his own, the boy drew cats instead. He could not help himself, for he was an artist at heart. He drew big cats and small cats, fat cats and thin cats, tall cats and short cats, sweet cats and ferocious cats. He drew cats on his lessons, he drew cats on the floor, he drew cats on the walls and, worst of all, he drew cats on the big, white, rice paper screens in the temple itself.
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