Oh oh oh! (happy dance)

My big sister got me Harry Potter in Ancient Greek for Christmas! Woo hoo!

(Received lots of other nice pressies and had a mellow low-key time with the hubby and kiddo. Missed being able to visit folks, but had many nice phone conversations throughout the day.)

Kitty help sought! Information please!

Just found that our rambunctious kitten managed to step in a puddle of half-congealed candlewax. He isn't burned, but his paw is caked with the stuff and he's not having a lot of success licking it off. We tried using a stiff brush and got a lot of the bits and pieces off, but the main area is still pretty solid. We tried soaking his paw in warm water to loosen it, but couldn't keep his paw in the water for more than a few seconds.

Is it safe to let him keep licking at it, or will it make him sick?

Is there any other way to get it off? If it was on any other surface, we'd use ice and peel it, but we don't want to try to hold an ice cube to his paw, for obvious reasons.

I am frantically searching the Internet trying to find help on this topic - so far not much (one promising discussion turned into a tiff on the wisdom of leaving electric tart warmers burning).