Papa was the Pussycat and she was the little mouse in her hole under the bed-clothes.
"I noticed the Owl and the Pussycat moored at the pier as we came by," he said.
Thus the tiger has converted the man, in his own mind, to a state as nerveless as the pussycat's.
He's got a head on him like an observation balloon and a tongue that feels like a pussycat's back.