Arthur the Persian Cat father liked to collect beautiful things like cups, vases and rugs. He loved antiques best of all, especially if they had an interesting story. He would travel many miles away to buy a good antique.
The living room shelf was full of teacups and vases that Arthur had collected.

Arthur liked to invite his friends from the village for tea and tell them the stories of everything he had collected.
His friends loved these tea parties and felt very elegant talking about antiques with Arthur. But his family wasn’t so happy. They had to be very careful in the living room so that they didn’t knock over any of Arthur’s cups and vases.

Arthur felt terrible about this.
“I won’t buy any more”, he promised.
But the next day he saw a beautiful rug and he just couldn’t stop himself from buying it.
The other Persian Cats were surprised to see Arthur lugging the big rug into the house, with a sheepish look on his face.

Arthur tidied the living room shelves and laid out his rug so that everybody could see the beautiful pattern. Bonnie the Persian Cat baby and Nel and Ned the Persian Cat twins were very excited.
They rolled over and crawled around on the fluffy rug.
When they got tired from playing, they fell asleep on it. They looked so comfortable that Cecilia the Persian Cat mother put blankets over them right there on the rug.

Nora the Persian Cat girl was also interested in the beautiful rug.
“I’ll have a fashion show and use the rug as the catwalk!”
she said, and began happily gathering dresses and jewellery to wear.
“I want to play on the rug too!”
said Felix the Persian Cat boy, running over excitedly.
Before long, the rug was covered with happy children.

The next day, everybody in the village came to see Arthur’s new rug.
“Hello, everyone!” said Arthur.
“It’s nice to see you all. You’ll love the rug, it’s beautiful.”
But when Arthur showed his friends into the living room, he got a surprise. The rug was covered with the babies’blankets and the children’s things. Nobody could see the lovely pattern at all!

But Arthur and Cecilia weren’t bothered at all! They were very happy to see that the children liked the rug so much.
“I wish you could have seen the pretty pattern”, said Arthur,
“but as you can see, everyone loves the rug. Now we have a place where we can all relax together as a family.”
“How nice”,
said the other mothers and fathers. They wanted to have a living room just like Arthur’s! The latest item in Arthur’s collection had made everyone very happy indeed.

THE END