When they got tired of that game, they went into the kitchen to see what interesting things they could find to do there. And, of course, Topsy began to climb--yes, he climbed up on everything in the kitchen except on the kitchen stove. He was too wise a kitten to do that. He climbed up on to the window sill and on to the table and on to the sink. Then he jumped up on to the kitchen dresser and climbed to the very top shelf, where he walked in and out among the plates, and yet he did not knock a single one down! Every now and then Topsy looked down at Bingo and tossed his head, as if to say, “Don’t you wish _you_ could do it, too?” Bingo was wild with excitement. He jumped up on his hind legs and barked, “Yap, yap, yap!” in his funny, hoarse little voice.
At last he _determined_ that he would climb up on the kitchen dresser, too. Yes, he would climb up to the very top shelf and show Topsy that he could climb, too!
There was a chair close to the kitchen dresser and Bingo first managed to climb up on that, then he scrambled up on to the dresser. He felt very proud when he looked down to the floor and saw what a height he had climbed to. Topsy was still up on the top shelf looking down at him with his head on one side.
Bingo then stood up on his hind legs and he put his paws up on the next shelf--but, oh, dear! Bingo was unlucky again! He knocked against a big, round, white tin that had FLOUR written on it in gold letters. And it toppled right over!--yes, it toppled right over and banged Bingo on the head, and a lot of white, powdery stuff fell all over him and got in his eyes. It was awful!
Poor Bingo did not want to climb any more. He jumped straight off the kitchen dresser on to the floor, and he ran out of the kitchen with his little short tail hanging down. He went into the living room and hid under the sofa--poor Bingo was feeling very unhappy and he wanted to be alone.
Soon he heard the front door open and he heard Charlie’s voice in the hall. Charlie and his Mother and his Auntie had come home.
Charlie said, “Oh, Mother, look at those funny white tracks all along the floor. What do you think they can be?”
His Mother and his Auntie looked, and they said, “How extraordinary! They look like Bingo’s footprints. I wonder what he can have been up to.”