Taffy, the cat, was always wandering about in the garden, poking her nose into everything. It was all full, of course, of bushes and flower-beds, and trees, and a pond with goldfish and water-lilies. And in the middle of the pond there was a little island where the Doctor kept his tame seagulls, Timothy, and a cormorant, named Henry. Henry was a real wild cormorant from the sea; but he had a wing broken by a boy with a slingshot—so the Doctor took him in and put him in the pond, because he couldn't fly.

One day Taffy followed the Doctor into the pond and swam after him among the water-lilies. And she looked so pretty with her wet fur and her paws like white flowers, that the Doctor laughed and said,

“Taffy, I’m going to get some of the town children to come and watch you swim. You are as interesting as some of those cats in books, because you don't act as you are supposed to—like those cats in the Alice-story, who always disappear, leaving nothing but a smile behind.”

Soon everyone in Puddleby had heard that the Doctor had a cat who could swim.