CONCERNING CATS

My Own and Some Others

By Helen M. Winslow

Editor of "The Club Woman"

To the

"PRETTY LADY"

WHO NEVER BETRAYED A SECRET, BROKE A PROMISE, ORPROVED AN UNFAITHFUL FRIEND; WHO HADALL THE VIRTUES AND NONE OFTHE FAILINGS OF HER SEX

I Dedicate this Volume

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

 I. CONCERNING THE PRETTY LADY. II. CONCERNING MY OTHER CATS. III. CONCERNING OTHER PEOPLE'S CATS. IV. CONCERNING STILL OTHER PEOPLE'S CATS. V. CONCERNING SOME HISTORIC CATS. VI. CONCERNING CATS IN ENGLAND. VII. CONCERNING CAT CLUBS AND CAT SHOWS. VIII. CONCERNING HIGH-BRED CATS IN AMERICA. IX. CONCERNING CATS IN POETRY. X. CONCERNING CAT ARTISTS. XI. CONCERNING CAT HOSPITALS AND REFUGES. XII. CONCERNING THE ORIGIN OF CATS. XIII. CONCERNING VARIETIES OF CATS. XIV. CONCERNING CAT LANGUAGE. 

_Concerning Cats_

CHAPTER I

CONCERNING THE "PRETTY LADY"

She was such a Pretty Lady, and gentle withal; so quiet and eminentlyladylike in her behavior, and yet dignified and haughtily reserved as aduchess. Still it is better, under certain circumstances, to be a catthan to be a duchess. And no duchess of the realm ever had more faithfulretainers or half so abject subjects. 

Do not tell me that cats never love people; that only places have realhold upon their affections. The Pretty Lady was contented wherever I, her most humble slave, went with her. She migrated with me fromboarding-house to sea-shore cottage; then to regular housekeeping; up tothe mountains for a summer, and back home, a long day's journey on therailway; and her attitude was always "Wheresoever thou goest I will go, and thy people shall be my people. "

I have known, and loved, and studied many cats, but my knowledge of heralone would convince me that cats love people--in their dignified, reserved way, and when they feel that their love is not wasted; thatthey reason, and that they seldom act from impulse. 

I do not remember that I was born with an inordinate fondness for cats;or that I cried for them as an infant. I do not know, even, that mychildhood was marked by an overweening pride in them; this, perhaps, wasbecause my cruel parents established a decree, rigid and unbending asthe laws of the Medes and Persians, that we must never have more thanone cat at a time. Although this very law may argue that predilection, at an early age, for harboring everything feline which came in my way, which has since become at once a source of comfort and distraction. 

After a succession of feline dynasties, the kings and queens of whichwere handsome, ugly, sleek, forlorn, black, white, deaf, spotted, andotherwise marked, I remember fastening my affections securely upon onekitten who grew up to be the ugliest, gauntest, and dingiest specimen Iever have seen. In the days of his kittenhood I christened him "Tassie"after his mother; but as time sped on, and the name hardly comportedwith masculine dignity, this was changed to Tacitus, as more befittinghis sex. He had a habit of dodging in and out of the front door, whichwas heavy, and which sometimes swung together before he was well out ofit. As a consequence, a caudal appendage with two broken joints was oneof his distinguishing features. Besides a broken tail, he had ears whichbore the marks of many a hard-fought battle, and an expression which forgeneral "lone and lorn"-ness would have discouraged even Mrs. Gummidge. But I loved him, and judging from the disconsolate and long-continuedwailing with which he rilled the house whenever I was away, my affectionwas not unrequited. 

But my real thraldom did not begin until I took the Pretty Lady'smother. We had not been a week in our first house before a handsomelystriped tabby, with eyes like beautiful emeralds, who had been the petand pride of the next-door neighbor for five years, came over anddomiciled herself. In due course of time she proudly presented us withfive kittens. Educated in the belief that one cat was all that wascompatible with respectability, I had four immediately disposed of, keeping the prettiest one, which grew up into the beautiful, fascinating, and seductive maltese "Pretty Lady, " with white trimmingsto her coat. The mother of Pretty Lady used to catch two mice at a time, and bringing them in together, lay one at my feet and say as plainly ascat language can say, "There, you eat that one, and I'll eat this, " andthen seem much surprised and disgusted that I had not devoured mine whenshe had finished her meal. 

We were occupying a furnished house for the summer, however, and as wewere to board through the winter, I took only the kitten back to town, thinking the mother would return to her former home, just over thefence. But no. For two weeks she refused all food and would not onceenter the other house. Then I went out for her, and hearing my voice shecame in and sat down before me, literally scolding me for a quarter ofan hour. I shall be laughed at, but actual tears stood in her lovelygreen eyes and ran down her aristocratic nose, attesting her grief andaccusing me, louder than her wailing, of perfidy. 

I could not keep her. She would not return to her old home. I finallycompromised by carrying her in a covered basket a mile and a half andbestowing her upon a friend who loves cats nearly as well as I. Butalthough she was petted, and praised, and fed on the choicest ofdelicacies, she would not be resigned. After six weeks of mourning, shedisappeared, and never was heard of more. Whether she sought a new andmore constant mistress, or whether, in her grief at my shamelessabandonment of her, she went to some lonely pier and threw herself offthe dock, will never be known. But her reproachful gaze and tearfulemerald eyes haunted me all winter. Many a restless night did I have toreproach myself for abandoning a creature who so truly loved me; and inmany a dream did she return to heap shame and ignominy upon my repentanthead. 

This experience determined me to cherish her daughter, whom, rather, Icherished as her son, until there were three little new-born kittens, which in a moment of ignorance I "disposed of" at once. Naturally, theyoung mother fell exceedingly ill. In the most pathetic way she draggedherself after me, moaning and beseeching for help. Finally, I succumbed, went to a neighbor's where several superfluous kittens had arrived thenight before, and begged one. It was a little black fellow, cold andhalf dead; but the Pretty Lady was beside herself with joy when Ibestowed it upon her. For two days she would not leave the box where Iestablished their headquarters, and for months she refused to wean it, or to look upon it as less than absolutely perfect. I may say that thePretty Lady lived to be nine years old, and had, during that briefperiod, no less than ninety-three kittens, besides two adopted ones; butnever did she bestow upon any of her own offspring that wealth of prideand affection which was showered upon black Bobbie. 

When the first child of her adoption was two weeks old, I was ill onemorning, and did not appear at breakfast. It had always been her customto wait for my coming down in the morning, evidently considering it anot unimportant part of her duty to see me well launched for the day. Usually she sat at the head of the stairs and waited patiently until sheheard me moving about. Sometimes she came in and sat on a chair at thehead of my bed, or gently touched my face with her nose or paw. Althoughshe knew she was at liberty to sleep in my room, she seldom did so, except when she had an infant on her hands. At first she invariably kepthim in a lower drawer of my bureau. When he was large enough, sheremoved him to the foot of the bed, where for a week or two her maternalsolicitude and sociable habits of nocturnal conversation with herprogeny interfered seriously with my night's rest. If my friends used tonotice a wild and haggard appearance of unrest about me at certainperiods of the year, the reason stands here confessed. 

I was ill when black Bobbie was two weeks old. The Pretty Lady waiteduntil breakfast was over, and as I did not appear, came up and jumped onthe bed, where she manifested some curiosity as to my lack of activeinterest in the world's affairs. 

"Now, pussy, " I said, putting out my hand and stroking her back, "I'msick this morning. When you were sick, I went and got you a kitten. Can't you get me one?"

This was all. My sister came in then and spoke to me, and the PrettyLady left us at once; but in less than two minutes she came back withher cherished kitten in her mouth. Depositing him in my neck, she stoodand looked at me, as much as to say:--

"There, you can take him awhile. He cured me and I won't be selfish; Iwill share him with you. "

I was ill for three days, and all that time the kitten was kept with me. When his mother wanted him, she kept him on the foot of the bed, whereshe nursed, and lapped, and scrubbed him until it seemed as if she mustwear even his stolid nerves completely out. But whenever she felt likegoing out she brought him up and tucked him away in the hollow of myneck, with a little guttural noise that, interpreted, meant:--

"There, now you take care of him awhile. I'm all tired out. Don't wakehim up. "

But when the infant had dropped soundly asleep, she invariably came backand demanded him; and not only demanded, but dragged him forth from hislair by the nape of the neck, shrieking and protesting, to the foot ofthe bed again, where he was obliged to go through another course ofscrubbing and vigorous maternal attentions that actually kept his furfrom growing as fast as the coats of less devotedly cared-for kittensgrow. 

When I was well enough to leave my room, she transferred him to my lowerbureau drawer, and then to a vantage-point behind an old lounge. But shenever doubted, apparently, that it was the loan of that kitten thatrescued me from an untimely grave. 

I have lost many an hour of much-needed sleep from my cat's habit ofcoming upstairs at four A. M. And jumping suddenly upon the bed; perhapslanding on the pit of my stomach. Waking in that fashion, unsympatheticpersons would have pardoned me if I had indulged in injudiciouslanguage, or had even thrown the cat violently from my otherwisepeaceful couch. But conscience has not to upbraid me with any of thesethings. I flatter myself that I bear even this patiently; I remember tohave often made sleepy but pleasant remarks to the faithful littlefriend whose affection for me and whose desire to behold my countenancewas too great to permit her to wait till breakfast time. 

If I lay awake for hours afterward, perhaps getting nothing more thanliteral "cat-naps, " I consoled myself with remembering how Richelieu, and Wellington, and Mohammed, and otherwise great as well asdiscriminating persons, loved cats; I remembered, with some stirrings ofsecret pride, that it is only the artistic nature, the truly aestheticsoul that appreciates poetry, and grace, and all refined beauty, whotruly loves cats; and thus meditating with closed eyes, I courtedslumber again, throughout the breaking dawn, while the cat purred indelight close at hand. 

The Pretty Lady was evidently of Angora or coon descent, as her fur wasalways longer and silkier than that of ordinary cats. She was fond ofall the family. When we boarded in Boston, we kept her in a front room, two flights from the ground. Whenever any of us came in the front door, she knew it. No human being could have told, sitting in a closed room inwinter, two flights up, the identity of a person coming up the steps andopening the door. But the Pretty Lady, then only six months old, used torouse from her nap in a big chair, or from the top of a folding bed, jump down, and be at the hall door ready to greet the incomer, beforeshe was halfway up the stairs. The cat never got down for the wrongperson, and she never neglected to meet any and every member of ourfamily who might be entering. The irreverent scoffer may call it"instinct, " or talk about the "sense of smell. " I call it sagacity. 

One summer we all went up to the farm in northern Vermont, and decidedto take her and her son, "Mr. McGinty, " with us. We put them both in alarge market-basket and tied the cover securely. On the train Mr. McGinty manifested a desire to get out, and was allowed to do so, astout cord having been secured to his collar first, and the other endtied to the car seat. He had a delightful journey, once used to thenoise and motion of the train. He sat on our laps, curled up on the seatand took naps, or looked out of the windows with evident puzzlement atthe way things had suddenly taken to flying; he even made friends withthe passengers, and in general amused himself as any other travellerwould on an all-day's journey by rail, except that he did not risk hiseyesight by reading newspapers. But the Pretty Lady had not travelledfor some years, and did not enjoy the trip as well as formerly; on thecontrary she curled herself into a round tight ball in one corner of thebasket till the journey's end was reached. 

Once at the farm she seemed contented as long as I remained with her. There was plenty of milk and cream, and she caught a great many mice. She was far too dainty to eat them, but she had an inherent pleasure incatching mice, just like her more plebeian sisters; and she enjoyedpresenting them to Mr. McGinty or me, or some other worthy object of hersolicitude. 

She was at first afraid of "the big outdoors. " The wide, wind-blownspaces, the broad, sunshiny sky, the silence and the roominess of itall, were quite different from her suburban experiences; and the farmanimals, too, were in her opinion curiously dangerous objects. Big Dan, the horse, was truly a horrible creature; the rooster was a new andsuspicious species of biped, and the bleating calves objects of herdirest hatred. 

The pig in his pen possessed for her the most horrid fascination. Againand again would she steal out and place herself where she could see thatdreadful, strange, pink, fat creature inside his own quarters. She wouldfix her round eyes widely upon him in blended fear and admiration. Ifthe pig uttered the characteristic grunt of his race, the Pretty Lady atfirst ran swiftly away; but afterward she used to turn and gazeanxiously at us, as if to say:--

"Do you hear that? Isn't this a truly horrible creature?" and in otherways evince the same sort of surprise that a professor in the PeabodyMuseum might, were the skeleton of the megatherium suddenly to accosthim after the manner peculiar to its kind. 

It was funnier, even, to see Mr. McGinty on the morning after hisarrival at the farm, as he sallied forth and made acquaintance withother of God's creatures than humans and cats, and the natural enemy ofhis kind, the dog. In his suburban home he had caught rats and capturedon the sly many an English sparrow. When he first investigated his newquarters on the farm, he discovered a beautiful flock of very largebirds led by one of truly gorgeous plumage. 

"Ah!" thought Mr. McGinty, "this is a great and glorious country, whereI can have such birds as these for the catching. Tame, too. I'll haveone for breakfast. "

So he crouched down, tiger-like, and crept carefully along to aconvenient distance and was preparing to spring, when the large andgorgeous bird looked up from his worm and remarked:--

"Cut-cut-cut, ca-dah-cut!" and, taking his wives, withdrew toward thebarn. 

Mr. McGinty drew back amazed. "This is a queer bird, " he seemed to say;"saucy, too. However, I'll soon have him, " and he crept more carefullythan before up to springing distance, when again this most gorgeous birddrew up and exclaimed, with a note of annoyance:--

"Cut-cut-cut, ca-dah-cut! What ails that old cat, anyway?" And again heled his various wives barn-ward. 

Mr. McGinty drew up with a surprised air, and apparently made a cursorystudy of the leading anatomical features of this strange bird; but hedid not like to give up, and soon crouched and prepared for anotheronslaught. This time Mr. Chanticleer allowed the cat to come up close tohis flock, when he turned and remarked in the most amicable manner, "Cut-cut-cut-cut!" which interpreted seemed to mean: "Come now; that'sall right. You're evidently new here; but you'd better take my adviceand not fool with me. "

Anyhow, with this, down went McGinty's hope of a bird breakfast "to thebottom of the sea, " and he gave up the hunt. He soon made friends, however, with every animal on the place, and so endeared himself to theowners that he lived out his days there with a hundred acres and more ashis own happy hunting-ground. 

Not so, the Pretty Lady. I went away on a short visit after a few weeks, leaving her behind. From the moment of my disappearance she was uneasyand unhappy. On the fifth day she disappeared. When I returned and foundher not, I am not ashamed to say that I hunted and called hereverywhere, nor even that I shed a few tears when days rolled into weeksand she did not appear, as I realized that she might be starving, orhave suffered tortures from some larger animal. 

There are many remarkable stories of cats who find their way home acrossalmost impossible roads and enormous distances. There is a saying, believed by many people, "You can't lose a cat, " which can be proved byhundreds of remarkable returns. But the Pretty Lady had absolutely nosense of locality. She had always lived indoors and had never beenallowed to roam the neighborhood. It was five weeks before we foundtrace of her, and then only by accident. My sister was passing a fieldof grain, and caught a glimpse of a small creature which she at firstthought to be a woodchuck. She turned and looked at it, and called"Pussy, pussy, " when with a heart-breaking little cry of utter delightand surprise, our beloved cat came toward her. From the first, the wideexpanse of the country had confused her; she had evidently "lost herbearings" and was probably all the time within fifteen minutes' walk ofthe farm-house. 

When found, she was only a shadow of herself, and for the first and onlytime in her life we could count her ribs. She was wild with delight, andclung to my sister's arms as though fearing to lose her; and in all thefuss that was made over her return, no human being could have showedmore affection, or more satisfaction at finding her old friends again. 

That she really was lost, and had no sense of locality to guide herhome, was proven by her conduct after she returned to her Boston home. Ihad preceded my sister, and was at the theatre on the evening when shearrived with the Pretty Lady. The latter was carried into the kitchen, taken from her basket, and fed. Then, instead of going around the houseand settling herself in her old home, she went into the front hall whichshe had left four months before, and seated herself on the spot whereshe always watched and waited when I was out. When I came home ateleven, I saw through the screen door her "that was lost and is found. "She had been waiting to welcome me for three mortal hours. 

I wish those people who believe cats have no affection for people couldhave seen her then. She would not leave me for an instant, andmanifested her love in every possible way; and when I retired for thenight, she curled up on my pillow and purred herself contentedly tosleep, only rising when I did. After breakfast that first morning afterher return, she asked to be let out of the back door, and made meunderstand that I must go with her. I did so, and she explored everypart of the back yard, entreating me in the same way she called herkittens to keep close by her. She investigated our own premisesthoroughly and then crept carefully under the fences on either side intothe neighbor's precincts where she had formerly visited in friendlyfashion; then she came timidly back, all the time keeping watch that shedid not lose me. Having finished her tour of inspection, she went in andled me on an investigating trip all through the house, smelling of everycorner and base-board, and insisting that every closet door should beopened, so that she might smell each closet through in the same way. When this was done, she settled herself in one of her old nooks for anap and allowed me to leave. 

But never again did she go out of sight of the house. For more than ayear she would not go even into a neighbor's yard, and when she finallydecided that it might be safe to crawl under the fences on to otherterritory, she invariably turned about to sit facing the house, asthough living up to a firm determination never to lose sight of itagain. This practice she kept up until at the close of her last mortalsickness, when she crawled into a dark place under a neighboring barnand said good-by to earthly fears and worries forever. 

_Requiescat in pace_, my Pretty Lady. I wish all your sex had yourgentle dignity, and grace, and beauty, to say nothing of yourfaithfulness and affection. Like Mother Michel's "Monmouth, " it may besaid of you:--

 "She was merely a cat, But her Sublime Virtues place her on a level with The Most Celebrated Mortals, and In Ancient Egypt Altars would have been Erected to her Memory. "

CHAPTER II

CONCERNING MY OTHER CATS

"Oh, what a lovely cat!" is a frequent expression from visitors orpassers-by at our house. And from the Pretty Lady down through hervarious sons and daughters to the present family protector and head, "Thomas Erastus, " and the Angora, "Lady Betty, " there have been somebeautiful creatures. 

Mr. McGinty was a solid-color maltese, with fur like a seal forcloseness and softness, and with the disposition of an angel. He used tobe seized with sudden spasms of affection and run from one to another ofthe family, rubbing his soft cheeks against ours, and kissing usrepeatedly. This he did by taking gentle little affectionate nips withhis teeth. I used to give him a certain caress, which he took as anexpression of affection. After leaving him at the farm I did not see himagain for two years. Then on a short visit, I asked for Mr. McGinty andwas told that he was in a shed chamber. I found him asleep in a box ofgrain and took him out; he looked at me through sleepy eyes, turnedhimself over and stretched up for the old caress. As nobody ever gavehim that but me, I take this as conclusive proof that he not only knewme, but remembered my one peculiarity. 

Then there was old Pomp, called "old" to distinguish him from the youngPomp of to-day, or "Pompanita. " He died of pneumonia at the age of threeyears; but he was the handsomest black cat--and the blackest--I haveever seen. He had half a dozen white hairs under his chin; but hisblackness was literally like the raven's wing. Many handsome black catsshow brown in the strong sunlight, or when their fur is parted. But oldPomp's fur was jet black clear through, and in the sunshine looked as ifhe had been made up of the richest black silk velvet, his eyes, meanwhile, being large and of the purest amber. He weighed some fifteenpounds, and that somebody envied us the possession of him was evident, as he was stolen two or three times during the last summer of his life. But he came home every time; only when Death finally stole him, we hadno redress. 

"Bobinette, " the black kitten referred to in the previous chapter, alsohad remarkably beautiful eyes. We used to keep him in ribbons to match, and he knew color, too, perfectly well. For instance, if we offered hima blue or a red ribbon, he would not be quiet long enough to have ittied on; but show him a yellow one, and he would prance across the room, and not only stand still to have it put on, but purr and evince thegreatest pride in it. 

Bobinette had another very pretty trick of playing with thetape-measure. He used to bring it to us and have it wound several timesaround his body; then he would "chase himself" until he got it off, whenhe would bring it back and ask plainly to have it wound round him again. After a little we noticed he was wearing the tape-measure out, and so wetried to substitute it with an old ribbon or piece of cotton tape. ButBobinette would have none of them. On the contrary, he repeatedlyclimbed on to the table and to the work-basket, and hunted patiently forhis tape-measure, and even if it were hidden in a pocket, he kept up thesearch until he unearthed it; and he would invariably end by draggingforth that particular tape-measure and bringing it to us. I need not saythat his intelligence was rewarded. 

Speaking of colors, a friend has a cat that is devoted to blue. When sheputs on a particularly pretty blue gown, the cat hastens to get into herlap, put her face down to the material, purr, and manifest the greatestdelight; but let the same lady put on a black dress, and the cat willnot come near her. 

"Pompanita, " the second Pomp in our dynasty, is a fat and billowy blackfellow, now five years old and weighing nineteen pounds. He was the lastof the Pretty Lady's ninety-three children. Only a few of this vastprogeny, however, grew to cat-hood, as she was never allowed to keepmore than one each season. The Pretty Lady, in fact, came to regard thisas the only proper method. On one occasion I had been away all day. WhenI got home at night the housekeeper said, "Pussy has had five kittens, but she won't go near them. " When the Pretty Lady heard my voice, shecame and led the way to the back room where the kittens were in thelower drawer of an unused bureau, and uttered one or two funny littlenoises, intimating that matters were not altogether as they should be, according to established rules of propriety. I understood, abstractedfour of the five kittens, and disappeared. When I came back she hadsettled herself contentedly with the remaining kitten, and from thattime on was a model mother. 

Pompanita the Good has all the virtues of a good cat, and absolutely novices. He loves us all and loves all other cats as well. As forfighting, he emulates the example of that veteran who boasts that duringthe war he might always be found where the shot and shell were thethickest, --under the ammunition wagon. Like most cats he has a decidedstreak of vanity. My sister cut a wide, fancy collar, or ruff, of whitepaper one day, and put it on Pompanita. At first he felt much abashedand found it almost impossible to walk with it. But a few words ofpraise and encouragement changed all that. 

"Oh, what a pretty Pomp he is now!" exclaimed one and another, until hesat up coyly and cocked his head one side as if to say:--

"Oh, now, do you really think I look pretty?" and after a few moreassurances he got down and strutted as proudly as any peacock; much tothe discomfiture of the kitten, who wanted to play with him. And now hewill cross the yard any time to have one of those collars on. 

But Thomas Erastus is the prince of our cats to-day. He weighs seventeenpounds, and is a soft, grayish-maltese with white paws and breast. OneSaturday night ten years ago, as we were partaking of our regular Bostonbaked beans, I heard a faint mew. Looking down I saw beside me thethinnest kitten I ever beheld. The Irish girl who presided over ourfortunes at the time used to place the palms of her hands together andsay of Thomas's appearance, "Why, mum, the two sides of 'im were justlike that. " I picked him up, and he crawled pathetically into my neckand cuddled down. 

"There, " said a friend who was sitting opposite, "he's fixed himselfnow. You'll keep him. "

"No, I shall not, " I said, "but I will feed him a few days and give himto my cousin. " Inside half an hour, however, Thomas Erastus had assumedthe paternal air toward us that soon made us fear to lose him. Livingwithout Thomas now would be like a young girl's going out without achaperone. After that first half-hour, when he had been fed, he chasedevery foreign cat off the premises, and assumed the part of a watch-dog. To this day he will sit on the front porch or the window-sill and growlif he sees a tramp or suspicious character approaching. He always goesinto the kitchen when the market-man calls, and orders his meat; and atexactly five o'clock in the afternoon, when the meat is cut up anddistributed, leads the feline portion of the family into the kitchen. 

Thomas knows the time of day. For six months he waked up one housekeeperat exactly seven o'clock in the morning, never varying two minutes. Hedid this by seating himself on her chest and gazing steadfastly in herface. Usually this waked her, but if she did not yield promptly to thattreatment he would poke her cheeks with the most velvety of paws untilshe awoke. He has a habit now of going upstairs and sitting opposite theclosed door of the young man who has to rise hours before the rest of usdo, and waiting until the door is opened for him. How he knows at whatparticular moment each member of the family will wake up and come forthis a mystery, but he does. 

How do cats tell the hour of day, anyway? The old Chinese theory thatthey are living clocks is, in a way, borne out by their own conduct. Notonly have my cats shown repeatedly that they know the hour of rising ofevery member of the family, but they gather with as much regularity asthe ebbing of the tides, or the setting of the sun, at exactly fiveo'clock in the afternoon for their supper. They are given a heartybreakfast as soon as the kitchen fire is started in the morning. Thistheoretically lasts them until five. I say theoretically, because ifthey wake from their invariable naps at one, and smell lunch, theyindividually wheedle some one into feeding them. But this is onlyindividually. Collectively they are fed at five. 

They are the most methodical creatures in the world. They go to bedregularly at night when the family does. They are waiting in the kitchenfor breakfast when the fire is started in the morning. Then they go outof doors and play, or hunt, or ruminate until ten o'clock, when theycome in, seek their favorite resting-places, and sleep until four. Evidently, from four to five is a play hour, and the one who wakes firstis expected to stir up the others. But at exactly five, no matter wherethey may have strayed to, every one of the three, five, or seven (as thenumber may happen to be) will be sitting in his own particular place inthe kitchen, waiting with patient eagerness for supper. For each has aparticular place for eating, just as bigger folk have their places atthe dining table. Thomas Erastus sits in a corner; the space under thetable is reserved especially for Jane. Pompanita is at his mistress'sfeet, and Lady Betty, the Angora, bounds to her shoulder when their meatappears. Their table manners are quite irreproachable also. It isconsidered quite unpardonable to snatch at another's piece of meat, anda breach of the best cat-etiquette to show impatience while another isbeing fed. 

I do not pretend to say that this is entirely natural. They are taughtthese things as kittens, and since cats are as great sticklers forpropriety and gentle manners as any human beings can be, they neverforget it. Doubtless, this is easier because they are always well fed, but Thomas Erastus or Jane would have to be on the verge of starvation, I am sure, before they would "grab" from one of the other cats. And asfor the Pretty Lady, it was always necessary to see that she wasproperly served. She would not eat from a dish with other cats, or, except in extreme cases, from one they had left. Indeed, she wasremarkable in this respect. I have seen her sit on the edge of a tablewhere chickens were being dressed and wait patiently for a tidbit; Ihave seen her left alone in the room, while on that table was a piece ofraw steak, but no temptation was ever great enough to make her touch anyof these forbidden things. She actually seemed to have a conscience. 

Only one thing on the dining table would she touch. When she was two orthree months old, she somehow got hold of the table-napkins done up intheir rings. These were always to her the most delightful playthings inthe world. As a kitten, she would play with them by the hour, if nottaken away, and go to sleep cuddled affectionately around them. She gotover this as she grew older; but when her first kitten was two or threemonths old, remembering the jolly times she used to have, she wouldsneak into the dining room and get the rolled napkins, carry them in hermouth to her infant, and endeavor with patient anxiety to show him howto play with them. Throughout nine years of motherhood she went throughthe same performance with every kitten she had. They never knew what todo with the napkins, or cared to know, and would have none of them. Butshe never got discouraged. She would climb up on the sideboard, or intothe china closet, and even try to get into drawers where the napkinswere laid away in their rings. If she could get hold of one, she wouldcarry it with literal groans and evident travail of spirit to herkitten, and by further groans and admonitions seem to say:--

"Child, see this beautiful plaything I have brought you. This is a partof your education; it is just as necessary for you to know how to playwith this as to poke your paw under the closet door properly. Wake up, now, and play with it. "

Sometimes, when the table was laid over night, we used to hear heranguished groans in the stillness of the night. In the morning everynapkin belonging to the family would be found in a different part of thehouse, and perhaps a ring would be missing. These periods, however, onlylasted as long, in each new kitten's training, as the few weeks that shehad amused herself with them at their age. Then she would drop thesubject, and napkins had no further interest than the man in the moonuntil another kitten arrived at the age when she considered them anecessary part of his education. 

Professor Shaler in his interesting book on the intelligence of animalsgives the cat only the merest mention, intimating that he considers thembelow par in this respect, and showing little real knowledge of them. Iwish he might have known the Pretty Lady. 

Once our Lady Betty had four little Angora kittens. She was probably themost aristocratic cat in the country, for she kept a wet nurse. PoorJane, of commoner strain, had two small kittens the day after the Angorafamily appeared. Jane's plebeian infants promptly disappeared, but shetook just as promptly to the more aristocratic family and fulfilled theduties of nurse and maid. Both cats and four kittens occupied the samebureau drawer, and when either cat wanted the fresh air she left theother in charge; and there was a tacit understanding between them thatthe fluffy, fat babies must never be left alone one instant. Four smalland lively kittens in the house are indeed things of beauty, and a joyas long as they last. Four fluffy little Angora balls they were Chin, Chilla, Buffie, and Orange Pekoe, names that explain their color. AndJane, wet nurse and waiting-maid, had to keep as busy as the old womanthat lived in a shoe. Jane it was who must look after the infants whenLady Betty wished to leave the house. Jane it was who must scrub thefurry quartet until their silky fur stood up in bunches the wrong wayall over their chubby little sides; Jane must sleep with them nights, and be ready to furnish sustenance at any moment of day or night; andabove all, Jane must watch them anxiously and incessantly in wakinghours, uttering those little protesting murmurs of admonition whichmother cats deem so necessary toward the proper training of kittens. And, poor Jane! As lady's maid she must bathe Lady Betty's brow everynow and then, as the more finely strung Angora succumbed to the nervousstrain of kitten-rearing, and she turned affectionately to Jane forcomfort. A prettier sight, or a more profitable study of the love ofanimals for each other was never seen than Lady Betty, her infants, andher nurse-maid. And yet, there are people who pronounce cats stupid. 

One evening I returned from the theatre late and roused up the fourfluffy kittens, who, seeing the gas turned on, started in for a frolic. The lady mother did not approve of midnight carousals on the part ofinfants, and protested with mild wails against their joyful caperings. Finally, Orange Pekoe got into the closet and Lady Betty pursued him. But suddenly a strange odor was detected. Sitting on her haunches shesmelled all over the bottom of the skirt which had just been hung up, stopping every few seconds to utter a little worried note of warning tothe kittens. The infants, however, displayed a quite human disregard ofparental authority and gambolled on unconcernedly under the skirt;reminding one of the old New England primer style of tales, showing howdisobedient children flaunt themselves in the face of danger, despitethe judicious advice of their elders. Lady Betty could do nothing withthem, and grew more nervous and worried every minute in consequence. Suddenly she bethought herself of that never-failing source of strengthand comfort, Jane. She went into the next room, and, although I had notheard a sound, returned in a moment with the maltese. Jane was usheredinto the closet, and soon scented out the skirt. Then she too sat on herhaunches and gave a long, careful sniff, turned round and uttered one"purr-t-t, " and took the Angora off with her. Jane had discovered thatthere was no element of danger in the closet, and had imparted herknowledge to the finely strung Angora in an instant. And so, taking herback to bed, she "bathed her brow" with gentle lappings until Lady Bettysank off to quiet sleep, soothed and comforted. 

It is not easy to study a cat. They are like sensitive plants, and shutthemselves instinctively away from the human being who does not care forthem. They know when a man or a woman loves them, almost before theycome into the human presence; and it is almost useless for theunsympathetic person to try to study a cat. But the thousands who dolove cats know that they are the most individual animals in the world. Dogs are much alike in their love for mankind, their obedience, faithfulness, and, in different degrees, their sagacity. But there is asmuch individuality in cats as in people. 

Dogs and horses are our slaves; cats never. This does not prove themwithout affection, as some people seem to think; on the contrary, itproves their peculiar and characteristic dignity and self-respect. Women, poets, and especially artists, like cats; delicate natures onlycan realize their sensitive nervous systems. 

The Pretty Lady's mother talked almost incessantly when she was in thehouse. One of her habits was to get on the window-seat outside anddemand to be let in. If she was not waited upon immediately, she would, when the door was finally opened, stop when halfway in and scoldvigorously. The tones of her voice and the expression of her face wereso exactly like those of a scolding, vixenish woman that she caused manya hearty laugh by her tirades. 

Thomas Erastus, however, seldom utters a sound, and at the rareintervals when he condescends to purr, he can only be heard by holdingone's ear close to his great, soft sides. But he has the most remarkableways. He will open every door in the house from the inside; he will evenopen blinds, getting his paw under the fastening and working patientlyat it, with his body on the blind itself, until the hook flies back andit finally opens. One housekeeper trained him to eat his meat close upin one corner of the kitchen. This custom he kept up after she wentaway, until new and uncommonly frisky kittens annoyed him so that hisplace was transferred to the top of an old table. When he got hungry inthose days, however, he used to go and crowd close up in his corner andlook so pathetically famished that food was generally forthcoming atonce. Thomas was formerly very much devoted to the lady who lived nextdoor, and was as much at home in her house as in ours. Her family rosean hour or two earlier than ours in the morning, and their breakfasthour came first. I should attribute Thomas's devotion to Mrs. T. To thisfact, since he invariably presented himself at her dining-room windowand wheedled her into feeding him, were it not that his affection seemedjust as strong throughout the day. It was interesting to see him go overand rattle her screen doors, front, back, or side, knowing perfectlywell that he would bring some one to open and let him in. 

Thomas has a really paternal air toward the rest of the family. Onespring night, as usual on retiring, I went to the back door to call inthe cats. Thomas Erastus was in my sister's room, but none of the otherswere to be seen; nor did they come at once, evidently having strayed intheir play beyond the sound of my voice. Thomas, upstairs, heard mycontinued call and tried for some time to get out. M. Had shut her door, thinking to keep in the one already safe. But the more I called, themore persistently determined he became to get out. At last M. Opened herwindow and let him on to the sloping roof of the "L, " from which hecould descend through a gnarled old apple tree. Meanwhile I left theback door and went on with my preparations for the night. About tenminutes later I went and called the cats again. It was a moonlight nightand I saw six delinquent cats coming in a flock across the open fieldbehind the house, --all marshalled by Mr. Thomas. He evidently huntedthem up and called them in himself; then he sat on the back porch andwaited until the last kit was safely in, before he stalked gravely inwith an air which said as plainly as words:--

"There, it takes _me_ to do anything with this family. "

None of my cats would think of responding to the call of "Kitty, Kitty, "or "Puss, Puss. " They are early taught their names and answer to them. Neither would one answer to the name of another, except in occasionalinstances where jealousy prompts them to do so. We have to be mostcareful when we go out of an evening, not to let Thomas Erastus get outat the same time. In case he does, he will follow us either to therailroad station or to the electric cars and wait in some near-by nookuntil we come back. I have known him to sit out from seven untilmidnight of a cold, snowy winter evening, awaiting our return from thetheatre. When we alight from the cars he is nowhere to be seen. Butbefore we have gone many steps, lo! Thomas Erastus is behind or besideus, proudly escorting his mistresses home, but looking neither at them, nor to the right or left. Not until he reaches the porch does he allowhimself to be petted. But on our way to the cars his attitude isdifferent. He is as frisky as a kitten. In vain do we try to "shoo" himback, or catch him. He prances along, just out of reach, buttantalizingly close; when we get aboard our car, we know he is safe insome corner gazing sadly after us, and that no danger can drive him homeuntil we reappear. 

Both Thomas and Pompanita take a deep interest in all household affairs, although in this respect they do not begin to show the curiosity of thePretty Lady. Never a piece of furniture was changed in he house that shedid not immediately notice, the first time she came into the roomafterward; and she invariably jumped up on the article and thoroughlyinvestigated affairs before settling down again. Every parcel that camein must be examined, and afterward she must lie on the paper or insidethe box that it came in, always doing this with great solemnity andgazing earnestly out of her large, intelligent dark eyes. Toward theclose of her life she was greatly troubled at any unusual stir in thehousehold. She liked to have company, but nothing disturbed her morethan to have a man working in the cellar, putting in coal, cutting wood, or doing such work. She used then to follow us uneasily about and lookearnestly up into our faces, as if to say:--

"Girls, this is not right. Everything is all upset here and 'a' theworld's gang agley. ' Why don't you fix it?"

She was the politest creature, too. That was the reason of her name. Inher youth she was christened "Pansy"; then "Cleopatra, " "Susan, " "LadyJane Grey" and the "Duchess. " But her manners were so punctiliouslyperfect, and she was such a "pretty lady" always and everywhere;moreover she had such a habit of sitting with her hands folded politelyacross her gentle, lace-vandyked bosom that the only sobriquet that everclung was the one that expressed herself the most perfectly. She was inevery sense a "Pretty Lady. " For years she ate with us at the table. Herchair was placed next to mine, and no matter where she was or howsoundly she had been sleeping, when the dinner bell rang she was thefirst to get to her seat. Then she sat patiently until I fixed a daintymeal in a saucer and placed it in the chair beside her, when she ate itin the same well-bred way she did everything. 

Thomas Erastus hurt his foot one day. Rather he got it hurt during amatutinal combat at which he was forced, being the head of the family, to be present, although he is far above the midnight carousals of hiskind. Thomas Erastus sometimes loves to consider himself an invalid. When his doting mistress was not looking, he managed to step off on thatfoot quite lively, especially if his mortal enemy, a disreputable blacktramp, skulked across the yard. But let Thomas Erastus see a feminineeye gazing anxiously at him through an open window, and he immediatelyhobbled on three legs; then he would stop and sit down and assume sopathetic an expression of patient suffering that the mistress's heartwould melt, and Thomas Erastus would find himself being borne into thehouse and placed on the softest sofa. Once she caught him down cellar. There is a window to which he has easy access, and where he can go inand out a hundred times a day. Evidently he had planned to do so at thatmoment. But seeing his fond mistress, he sat down on the cellar floor, and with his most fetching expression gazed wistfully back and forthfrom her to the window. And of course she picked him up carefully andput him on the window ledge. Thomas Erastus has all the innocent guileof a successful politician. He could manage things slicker than thepolitical bosses, an' he would. 

One summer Thomas Erastus moved--an event of considerable importance inhis placid existence. He had to travel a short distance on thesteam-cars; and worse, he needs must endure the indignity of travellingthat distance in a covered basket. But his dignity would not suffer himto do more than send forth one or two mournful wails of protest. Afterbeing kept in his new house for a couple of days, he was allowed to goout and become familiar with his surroundings--not without fear andtrepidation on the part of his doting mistress that he might make a boldstrike for his former home. But Thomas Erastus felt he had a mission toperform for his race. He would disprove that mistaken theory that a cat, no matter how kindly he is treated, cares more for places than forpeople. Consequently he would not dream of going back to his old haunts. 

No; he sat down in the front yard and took a long look at hissurroundings, the neighboring lots, a field of grass, a wavingcorn-field. He had already convinced himself that the new house washome, because in it were all the old familiar things, and he had beenallowed to investigate every bit of it and to realize what had happened. So after looking well about him he made a series of tours ofinvestigation. First, he took a bee-line for the farthest end of thenearest vacant lot; then he chose the corn-field; then the beautifulbroad grounds of the neighbor below; then across the street; but betweeneach of these little journeys he took a bee-line back to hisstarting-point, sat down in front of the new house, and "got hisbearings, " just as evidently as though he could have said out loud, "This is my home and I mustn't lose it. " In this way he convincedhimself that where he lives is the centre of the universe, and that theworld revolves around him. And he has since been as happy as acricket, --yea, happier, for death and destruction await the unfortunatecricket where Thomas Erastus thrives. 

But don't say a cat can't or won't be moved. It's your own fault if hewon't. 

CHAPTER III

CONCERNING OTHER PEOPLE'S CATS

Every observing reader of Mrs. Harriet Prescott Spofford's stories knowsthat she is fond of cats and understands them. Her heroines usuallyhave, among other feminine belongings and accessories, one or more cats. "Four great Persian cats haunted her every footstep, " she says of Honor, in the "Composite Wife. " "A sleepy, snowy creature like somehalf-animated ostrich plume; a satanic thing with fiery eyes that to Mr. Chipperley's perception were informed with the very bottomless flames;another like a golden fleece, caressing, half human; and a littlemouse-colored imp whose bounds and springs and feathery tail-lashingsnot only did infinite damage among the Venetian and Dresdenknick-knackerie, but among Mr. Chipperley's nerves. "

In her beautiful, old-fashioned home at Newburyport, Mass. , she has twobeloved cats. But I will not attempt to improve on her own account ofthem:--

"As for my own cats, --their name has been legion, although a few remainpreeminent. There was Miss Spot who came to us already named, preferringour domicile to the neighboring one she had. Her only son was so blackthat he was known as Ink Spot, but her only daughter was so altogetherideal and black, too, that she was known as Beauty Spot. Beauty Spot leda sorrowful life, and was fortunately born clothed in black or hermourning would have been expensive, as she was always in a bereavedcondition, her drowned offspring making a shoal in the Merrimac, although she had always plenty left. She solaced herself with music. Shewould never sit in any one's lap but mine, and in mine only when I sang;and then only when I sang 'The Last Rose of Summer. ' This is reallytrue. But she would spring into my husband's lap if he whistled. Shewould leave her sleep reluctantly, start a little way, and retreat, start and retreat again, and then give one bound and light on his kneeor his arm and reach up one paw and push it repeatedly across his mouthlike one playing the jew's-harp; I suppose to get at the sound. Shealways went to walk with us and followed us wherever we went about theisland. 

"Lucifer and Phosphor have been our cats for the last ten years:Lucifer, entirely black, Phosphor, as yellow as saffron, a real goldenfleece. My sister lived in town and going away for the summer left hercat in a neighbor's care, and the neighbor moved away meanwhile and leftthe cat to shift for herself. She went down to the apothecary's, twoblocks away or more. There she had a family of kittens, but apparentlycame up to reconnoitre, for on my sister's return, she appeared with onekitten and laid it down at Kate's feet; ran off, and in time came withanother which she left also, and so on until she had brought up thewhole household. Lucifer was one of them. 

"He was as black as an imp and as mischievous as one. His bounds havealways been tremendous: from the floor to the high mantel, or to the topof a tall buffet close under the ceiling. And these bounds of his, together with a way he has of gazing into space with his soulful andenormous yellow eyes, have led to a thousand tales as to his nightlyjourneyings among the stars; hurting his foot slumping through thenebula in Andromeda; getting his supper at a place in the milky way, hunting all night with Orion, and having awful fights with Sirius. Hegot his throat cut by alighting on the North Pole one night, coming downfrom the stars. The reason he slumps through the nebula is on account ofhis big feet; he has six toes (like the foot in George Augustus Sala'sdrawing) and when he walks on the top of the piazza you would think itwas a burglar. 

"Lucifer's Mephistophelian aspect is increased not only by those feet, but by an arrow-pointed tail. He sucks his tail, --alas, and alas! Invain have we peppered it, and pepper-sauced it, and dipped it inWorcestershire sauce and in aloes, and done it up in curl papers, andglued on it the fingers of old gloves. At last we gave it up in despair, and I took him and put his tail in his mouth and told him to take hispleasure, --and that is the reason, I suppose, that he attaches himselfparticularly to me. He is very near-sighted with those magnificent orbs, for he will jump into any one's lap, who wears a black gown, but jumpdown instantly, and when he finds my lap curl down for a brief season. But he is not much of a lap-loving cat. He puts up his nose and smellsmy face all over in what he means for a caress, and is off. He is not alarge eater, although he has been known to help himself to a whole steakat the table, being alone in the dining room; and when poultry are inthe larder he is insistent till satisfied. But he wants his breakfastearly. If the second girl, whose charge he is, does not rise in season, he mounts two flights of stairs and seats himself on her chest until shedoes rise. Then if she does not wait on him at once, he goes into thedrawing-room, and springs to the top of the upright piano, anddeliberately knocks off the bric-a-brac, particularly loving toencounter and floor a brass dragon candlestick. Then he springs to themantel-shelf if he has not been seized and appeased, and repeatsoperations, and has even carried his work of destruction around the roomto the top of a low bookcase and has proved himself altogether the wrongsort of person in a china-shop. 

"However, it is conceded in the family that Phosphor is not a catmerely: he is a person, and Lucifer is a spirit. Lucifer seldom purrs--Iwonder if that is a characteristic of black cats?" [No; my black catsfairly roar. ] "A little thread of sound, and only now and then, whenvery happy and loving, a rich, full strain. But Phosphor purrs like awindmill, like an electric car, like a tea-kettle, like a whole boileddinner. When Phosphor came, Lucifer, six weeks her senior (Phosphor'sexcellencies always incline one to say 'she' of him), thought the littlelive yellow ball was made only for him to play with, and he cuffed andtossed him around for all he was worth, licked him all over twenty timesa day, and slept with his arms about him. During those early yearsPhosphor never washed himself, Lucifer took such care of him, and theywere a lovely sight in each other's arms asleep. But of late years acoolness has intervened, and now they never speak as they pass by. Theysometimes go fishing together, Lucifer walking off majestically alone, always dark, mysterious, reticent, intent on his own affairs, making youfeel that he has a sort of lofty contempt for yours. Sometimes, the micedepositing a dead fish in the crannies of the rocks, Lucifer appearswith it in the twilight, gleaming silver-white in his jaws, and thegreat eyes gleaming like fire-balls above it. Phosphor is, however, amighty hunter: mice, rats by the score, chipmunks, --all is game thatcomes to his net. He has cleaned out whole colonies of catbirds (fortheir insolence), and eaten every golden robin on the island. 

"It used to be very pretty to see them, when they were little, as ElMahdi, the peacock, spread his great tail, dart and spring upon it, andgo whirling round with it as El Mahdi, fairly frantic with the littledemons that had hold of him, went skipping and springing round andround. But although so fierce a fighter, so inhospitable to every othercat, Phosphor is the most affectionate little soul. He is still veryplayful, though so large, and last summer to see him bounding on thegrass, playing with his tail, turning somersaults all by himself, wasquite worth while. When we first happened to go away in his early yearshe wouldn't speak to us when we came back, he felt so neglected. I wentaway for five months once, before Lucifer was more than a year old. Hegot into no one's lap while I was gone, but the moment I sat down on myreturn, he jumped into mine, saluted me, and curled himself down for anap, showing the plainest recognition. Now when one comes back, Phosphoris wild with joy--always in a well-bred way. He will get into your armsand on your shoulder and rub his face around, and before you know it hislittle mouth is in the middle of your mouth as much like a kiss asanything can be. Perhaps it isn't so well bred, but his motions are soquick and perfect it seems so. When you let him in he curls into heapsof joy, and fairly stands on his head sometimes. He is the mostresponsive creature, always ready for a caress, and his wild, greatamber eyes beam love, if ever love had manifestation. His beauty isreally extraordinary; his tail a real wonder. Lucifer, I grieve to say, looks very moth-eaten. Phosphor wore a bell for a short time once--alittle Inch-Cape Rock bell--but he left it to toll all winter in a talltree near the drawing-room window. 

"A charm of cats is that they seem to live in a world of their own, justas much as if it were a real dimension of space; and speaking of afourth dimension, I am living in the expectation that the newdiscoveries in the matter of radiant energy will presently be revealingto all our senses the fact that there is no death. 

"We had some barn kittens once that lived in the hen-house, ate with thehens, and quarrelled with them for any tidbit. They curled up in the eggboxes and didn't move when the hens came to lay, and evidently had noidea that they were not hens. 

"Oh, there is no end to the cat situation. It began with the old fellowwho put his hand under the cat to lift her up, and she arched her backhigher and higher until he found it was the serpent Asgard, and it won'tend with you and me. I don't know but she _is_ the serpent Asgard. I don't know if you have hypnotized or magnetized me, but I am writingas if I had known you intimately all my life, and feel as though I had. It is the freemasonry of cats. I always said they were possessed ofspirits, and they use white magic to bring their friends together. "

Mrs. Spofford's "barn kittens" bring to mind an incident related by Mrs. Wood, the beautiful wife of Professor C. G. Wood, of the Harvard MedicalSchool. At their summer place on Buzzard's Bay she has fifteen cats, mostly Angoras, Persians, and coons, with several dogs. These catsfollow her all about the place in a regular troop, and a very handsometroop they are, with their waving, plumy tails tipped gracefully over atthe ends as if saluting their superior officer. Among the dogs is aspaniel named Gyp that is particularly friendly with the cats. There areplenty of hens on the farm, and one spring a couple of bantams wereadded to the stock. The cats immediately took a great fancy to thesediminutive bipeds, and watched them with the greatest interest. Finallythe little hen had a flock of chickens. As the weather was still cold, the farmer put them upstairs in one of the barns, and every day Gypwould take seven or eight of those cats up there to see the fluffylittle things. Dog and cats would seat themselves around the bantam andher brood and watch them by the hour, never offering to touch thechickens except when the little things were tired and went for a napunder their mother's wings; and then some cat--first one and thenanother--would softly poke its paw under the hen and stir up the family, making them all run out in consternation, and keeping things lively oncemore. The cats didn't dream of catching the chickens, only wanting, evidently, that they should emulate Joey and keep moving on. 

A writer in the _London Spectator_ tells of a favorite bantam henwith which the house cat has long been accustomed to play. This bantamhas increased and multiplied, and keeps her family in a "coop" on theground, --into which rats easily enter. At bedtime, however, pussy takesup her residence there, and bantam, the brood of chickens, and pussysleep in happy harmony nightly. If any rats arrive, their experiencemust be sad and sharp. Another writer in the same number tells of a catin Huddersfield, England, belonging to Canon Beardsley, who helpshimself to a reel of cotton from the work-basket, takes it on the floor, and plays with it as long as he likes, and then jumps up and puts thereel back in its place again; just as our Bobinette used to get histape-measure, although the latter never was known to put it away. 

Miss Sarah Orne Jewett is a cat-lover, too, and the dear oldcountrywomen "down in Maine, " with whom one gets acquainted through herbooks, usually keep a cat also. Says she:--

"I look back over so long a line of family cats, from a certain poorSpotty who died an awful death in a fit on the flagstones under thelibrary window when I was less than five years old, to a lawless, fluffy, yellow and white coon cat now in my possession, that I find ithard to single out the most interesting pussy of all. I shall have tospeak of two cats at least, one being the enemy and the other the friendof my dog Joe. Joe and I grew up together and were fond companions, until he died of far too early old age and left me to take my countrywalks alone. 

"Polly, the enemy, was the best mouser of all: quite the best businesscat we ever had, with an astonishing intellect and a shrewd way ofgaining her ends. She caught birds and mice as if she foraged for ourwhole family: she had an air of responsibility and a certain impatienceof interruption and interference such as I have never seen in any othercat, and a scornful way of sitting before a person with fierce eyes anda quick, ominous twitching of her tail. She seemed to be measuring one'sincompetence as a mouse-catcher in these moments, or to be saying toherself, 'What a clumsy, stupid person; how little she knows, and how Ishould like to scratch her and hear her squeak. ' I sometimes felt as ifI were a larger sort of helpless mouse in these moments, but sometimesPolly would be more friendly, and even jump into our laps, when it was apleasure to pat her hard little head with its exquisitely soft, darktortoise-shell fur. No matter if she almost always turned and caught thecaressing hand with teeth and claws, when she was tired of its touch, you would always be ready to pat her next time; there was such afascination about her that any attention on her part gave a thrill ofpride and pleasure. Every guest and stranger admired her and tried towin her favor: while we of the household hid our wounds and delighted inher cleverness and beauty. 

"Polly was but a small cat to have a mind. She looked quite round andkittenish as she sat before the fire in a rare moment of leisure, withher black paws tucked under her white breast and her sleek back lookingas if it caught flickers of firelight in some yellow streaks among theshiny black fur. But when she walked abroad she stretched out long andthin like a little tiger, and held her head high to look over the grassas if she were threading the jungle. She lashed her tail to and fro, andone turned out of her way instantly. You opened a door for her if shecrossed the room and gave you a look. She made you know what she meantas if she had the gift of speech: at most inconvenient moments you wouldgo out through the house to find her a bit of fish or to open the cellardoor. You recognized her right to appear at night on your bed with oneof her long-suffering kittens, which she had brought in the rain, out ofa cellar window and up a lofty ladder, over the wet, steep roofs anddown through a scuttle into the garret, and still down into warmshelter. Here she would leave it and with one or two loud, admonishingpurrs would scurry away upon some errand that must have been like one ofthe border frays of old. 

"She used to treat Joe, the dog, with sad cruelty, giving him a sharpblow on his honest nose that made him meekly stand back and see her addhis supper to her own. A child visitor once rightly complained thatPolly had pins in her toes, and nobody knew this better than poor Joe. At last, in despair, he sought revenge. I was writing at my desk oneday, when he suddenly appeared, grinning in a funny way he had, andwagging his tail, until he enticed me out to the kitchen. There I foundPolly, who had an air of calling everything in the house her own. Shewas on the cook's table, gobbling away at some chickens which were beingmade ready for the oven and had been left unguarded. I caught her andcuffed her, and she fled through the garden door, for once tamed andvanquished, though usually she was so quick that nobody could administerjustice upon these depredations of a well-fed cat. Then I turned and sawpoor old Joe dancing about the kitchen in perfect delight. He had beenafraid to touch Polly himself, but he knew the difference between rightand wrong, and had called me to see what a wicked cat she was, and togive him the joy of looking on at the flogging. 

"It was the same dog who used sometimes to be found under a table wherehis master had sent him for punishment in his young days of lawlesspuppy-hood for chasing the neighbor's chickens. These faults had longbeen overcome, but sometimes, in later years, Joe's conscience wouldtrouble him, we never knew why, and he would go under the table of hisown accord, and look repentant and crestfallen until some forgiving andsympathetic friend would think he had suffered enough and bid him comeout to be patted and consoled. 

"After such a house-mate as Polly, Joe had great amends in our next cat, yellow Danny, the most amiable and friendly pussy that ever walked onfour paws. He took Danny to his heart at once: they used to lie in thesun together with Danny's head on the dog's big paws, and I sometimesused to meet them walking as coy as lovers, side by side, up one of thegarden walks. When I could not help laughing at their sentimental andconscious air, they would turn aside into the bushes for shelter. Theyrespected each other's suppers, and ate together on the kitchen hearth, and took great comfort in close companionship. Danny always answered ifyou spoke to him, but he made no sound while always opening his mouthwide to mew whenever he had anything to say, and looking up into yourface with all his heart expressed. These affectations of speech weremost amusing, especially in so large a person as yellow Danny. He wasmuch beloved by me and by all his family, especially poor Joe, who mustsometimes have had the worst of dreams about old Polly, and her sharp, unsparing claws. "

Miss Mary E. Wilkins is also a great admirer of cats. "I adore cats, "she says. "I don't love them as well as dogs, because my own nature ismore after the lines of a dog's; but I adore them. No matter how tiredor wretched I am, a pussy-cat sitting in a doorway can divert my mind. Cats love one so much: more than they will allow; but they have so muchwisdom they keep it to themselves. "

Miss Wilkins's "Augustus" was moved with her from Brattleboro, Vt. , after her father's death and when she went to Randolph, Mass. , to live. He had been the pet of the family for a long time, but he came to anuntimely end. 

"I hope, " says Miss Wilkins, "people's unintentional cruelty will not beremembered against them. " Since living in Randolph she has had twolovely yellow and white cats, "Punch and Judy. " The latter was shot by aneighbor, but Punch, the right-hand cat with the angelic expression, still survives. 

"I am quite sure, " says his mistress, "he loves me better than anybodyelse, although he is so very close about it. Punch Wilkins has oneaccomplishment. He can open a door with an old-fashioned latch: but hecannot shut it. "

Louise Imogen Guiney is famous for her love and good comradeship withdogs, especially her setters and St. Bernards, but she is too thoroughlya poet not to be captivated by the grace and beauty of a cat. 

"I love the unsubmissive race, " she says, "and have had much edificationout of the charming friendships between our St. Bernards and our cats. Annie Clarke [the actress] once gave me two exquisite Angoras, littlepersons of character equal to their looks; but they died young and wehave not since had the heart to replace them. I once had another coon, asmall, spry, gray fellow named Scot, the tamest and most endearing ofpets, always on your shoulder and a' that, who suddenly, on noprovocation whatever, turned wild, lived for a year or more in the woodsnext our garden, hunting and fishing, although ceaselessly chased, andcalled, and implored to revisit his afflicted family. He associatedsometimes with the neighbor's cat, but never, never more with humanity, until finally we found his pathetic little frozen body one Christmasnear the barn. Do you remember Arnold's Scholar Gypsy? Our Scot was hisfeline equivalent.... Have you counted in Prosper Merimée among theconfirmed lovers of cats? I remember a delightful little paragraph outof one of his letters about _un vieux chat noir, parfaitement laid, mais plein d'ésprit et de discrétion. Seulement il n'a eu que des gensvulgaires et manque d'usage. _"

Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney, who has written so many helpful stories for girls, is another lover of cats. Cats do not lie curled up on cushionseverywhere in her books, as they do in Mrs. Spofford's. But in "ZerubThroop's Experiment" there is an amusing cat story, which, she declares, got so much mixed up with a ghost story that nobody ever knew which waswhich. And the incident is true in every particular, except the findingof a will or codicil, or something at the end, which is attached forpurposes of fiction. 

A great deal has been written about the New York _Sun's_ famouscats. At my request, Mr. Dana furnished the following description of theinteresting _Sun_ family. I can only vouch for its veracity byquoting the famous phrase, "If you see it in the _Sun_, it is so. "

"_Sun_ office cat (_Felis Domestica; var. Journalistica_). This is a variation of the common domestic cat, of which but one familyis known to science. The habitat of the species is in Newspaper Row; itslair is in the _Sun_ building, its habits are nocturnal, and itfeeds on discarded copy and anything else of a pseudo-literary natureupon which it can pounce. In dull times it can subsist upon a meagrediet of telegraphic brevities, police court paragraphs, and cityjottings; but when the universe is agog with news, it will exhibit theinsatiable appetite which is its chief distinguishing mark of differencefrom the common _felis domestica_. A single member of this familyhas been known, on a 'rush' night, to devour three and a half columns ofpresidential possibilities, seven columns of general politics, prettymuch all but the head of a large and able-bodied railroad accident, anda full page of miscellaneous news, and then claw the nether garments ofthe managing editor, and call attention to an appetite still in goodworking order. 

"The progenitrix of the family arrived in the _Sun_ office manyyears ago, and installed herself in a comfortable corner, and within afew short months she had noticeably raised the literary tone of thepaper, as well as a large and vociferous family of kittens. Thesekittens were weaned on reports from country correspondents, and thesight of the six children and the mother cat sitting in a semicircle wasone which attracted visitors from all parts of the nation. Just beforeher death--immediately before, in fact--the mother cat developed aliterary taste of her own and drank the contents of an ink-bottle. Shewas buried with literary honors, and one of her progeny was advanced tothe duties and honors of office cat. From this time the line came down, each cat taking the 'laurel greener from the brows of him that utterednothing base, ' upon the death of his predecessor. There is but one blotupon the escutcheon of the family, put there by a recent incumbent whodeveloped a mania at once cannibalistic and infanticidal, and set aboutmaking a free lunch of her offspring, in direct violation of the Raineslaw and the maternal instinct. She died of an overdose of chloroform, and her place was taken by one of the rescued kittens. 

"It is the son of this kitten who is the present proud incumbent of theoffice. Grown to cat-hood, he is a creditable specimen of his family, with beryl eyes, beautiful striped fur, showing fine mottlings ofmucilage and ink, a graceful and aspiring tail, an appetite for copyunsurpassed in the annals of his race, and a power and perseverance invocality, chiefly exercised in the small hours of the morning, that, together with the appetite referred to, have earned for him the name ofthe Mutilator. The picture herewith given was taken when the animal wasa year and a half old. Up to the age of one year the Mutilator made itslair in the inside office with the Snake Editor, until a tragic endingcame to their friendship. During a fortnight's absence of the office catupon important business, the Snake Editor cultivated the friendship ofthree cockroaches, whom he debauched by teaching them to drink beerspilled upon his desk for that purpose. On the night of the cat'sreturn, the three bugs had become disgracefully intoxicated, and werereeling around the desk beating time with their legs to a rollickingcatch sung by the Snake Editor. Before the muddled insects could crawlinto a crack, the Mutilator was upon them, and had bolted every one. Then with a look of reproach at the Snake Editor, he drew threeperpendicular red lines across that gentleman's features with his clawsand departed in high scorn, nor could he ever thereafter be lured intothe inner office where the serpent-sharp was laying for him with a spacemeasure. Since that time he has lived in the room occupied by thereporters and news editors. 

"Many hundreds of stories, some of them slanderous have been told aboutthe various _Sun_ office cats, but we have admitted here none ofthese false tales. The short sketch given here is beyond suspicion inall its details, as can be vouched for by many men of high position whoought to know better. "

CHAPTER IV

CONCERNING STILL OTHER PEOPLE'S CATS

The nearest approach to the real French Salon in America is said to befound in Mrs. Louise Chandler Moulton's Boston drawing-room. In formerdays, at her weekly Fridays, Sir Richard Coeur de Lion was alwayspresent, sitting on the square piano amidst a lot of other celebrities. The autographed photographs of Paderewski, John Drew, and distinguishedlitterateurs, however, used to lose nothing from the proximity of Mrs. Moulton's favorite maltese friend, who was on the most intimate termswith her for twelve years, and hobnobbed familiarly with most of thelions of one sort or another who have visited Boston and who invariablyfind their way into this room. If there were flowers on the piano, Richard's nose hovered near them in a perfect abandon of delight. Indeed, his fondness for flowers was a source of constant contentionbetween him and his mistress, who feared lest he knock the souvenirs offoreign countries to the floor in his eagerness to climb whereverflowers were put. He was as dainty about his eating as in his taste forthe beautiful, scorning beef and mutton as fit only for coarser mortals, and choosing, like any _gourmet_, to eat only the breast ofchicken, or certain portions of fish or lobster. He was not proofagainst the flavor of liver, at any time; but recognized in it his oneweakness, --as the delicate lady may who takes snuff or chews gum on thesly. When Mrs. Moulton first had him, she had also a little dog, and thetwo, as usual when a kitten is brought up with a dog, became thegreatest of friends. 

That Richard was a close observer was proved by the way he used to waghis tail, in the same fashion and apparently for the same reasons as thedog. This went on for several years, but when the dog died, the fashionof wagging tails went out, so far as Richard Coeur de Lion wasconcerned. 

He had a fashion of getting up on mantels, the tops of bookcases, or onshelves; and his mistress, fearing demolition of her household Lares andPenates, insisted on his getting down, whereupon Richard would lookreproachfully at her, apparently resenting this treatment for daysafterward, refusing to come near her and edging off if she tried to makeup with him. 

When Richard was getting old, a black cat came to Mrs. Moulton, who kepthim "for luck, " and named him the Black Prince. The older cat was alwaysjealous of the newcomer, and treated him with lofty scorn. When hecaught Mrs. Moulton petting the Black Prince, who is a very affectionatefellow Richard fiercely resented it and sometimes refused to haveanything to do with her for days afterward, but finally came around andmade up in shamefaced fashion. 

Mrs. Moulton goes to London usually in the summer, leaving the cats inthe care of a faithful maid whom she has had for years. After shesailed, Richard used to come to her door for several mornings, and notbeing let in as usual, understood that his beloved mistress had left himagain, whereupon he kept up a prolonged wailing for some time. He wascorrespondingly glad to see her on her return in October. 

Mrs. Moulton tells the following remarkable cat story:--

"My mother had a cat that lived to be twenty-five years old. He wasfaithful and fond, and a great pet in the family, of course. About twoyears before his death, a new kitten was added to the family. Thiskitten, named Jim, immediately conceived the greatest affection for oldJack, and as the old fellow's senses of sight and smell failed so thathe could not go hunting himself, Jim used to do it for both. Every dayhe brought Jack mice and squirrels and other game as long as he lived. Then, too, he used to wash Jack, lapping him all over as a mother catdoes her kitten. He did this, too, as long as he lived. The feebler oldJack grew the more Jim did for him, and when Jack finally died of oldage, Jim was inconsolable. "

Twenty-five years might certainly be termed a ripe old age for a cat, their average life extending only to ten or twelve years. But I haveheard of one who seems to have attained even greater age. The mother ofJane Andrews, the writer on educational and juvenile subjects, had onewho lived with them twenty-four years. He had peculiar markings andcertain ways of his own about the house quite different from other cats. He disappeared one day when he was twenty-four, and was mourned as dead. But one day, some six or seven years later, an old cat came to theirdoor and asked to be let in. He had the same markings, and on being letin, went directly to his favorite sleeping-places and lay down. Heseemed perfectly familiar with the whole place, and went on with hislife from that time, just as though he had never been away, showing allhis old peculiarities. When he finally died, he must have beenthirty-three years old. 

Although in other days a great many noted men have been devoted to cats, I do not find that our men of letters to-day know so much about cats. Mr. William Dean Howells says: "I never had a cat, pet or otherwise. Ilike them, but know nothing of them. " Judge Robert Grant says, "Myfeelings toward cats are kindly and considerate, but not ardent. "

Thomas Bailey Aldrich says, "The only cat I ever had any experience withwas the one I translated from the French of Émile de La Bédolliérre manyyears ago for the entertainment of my children. " [Footnote: "MotherMichel's Cat. "] Brander Matthews loves them not. George W. Cable answers, when asked if he loves the "harmless, necessary cat, " by the Yankee method, and says, "If you had three or four acres of beautiful woods in which werelittle red squirrels and chipmunks and fifty or more kinds of nestingbirds, and every abutting neighbor kept a cat, and none of them kept theircat out of those woods--_would you like cats?_" which is, indeed, something of a poser. 

Colonel Thomas W. Higginson, however, confesses to a great fondness forcats, although he has had no remarkable cats of his own. He tells astory told him by an old sailor at Pigeon Cove, Mass. , of a cat whichhe, the sailor, tried in vain to get rid of. After trying severalmethods he finally put the cat in a bag, walked a mile to Lane's Cove, tied the cat to a big stone with a firm sailor's knot, took it out in adory some distance from the shore, and dropped the cat overboard. Thenhe went back home to find the cat purring on the doorstep. 

Those who are familiar with Charles Dudley Warner's "My Summer in aGarden" will not need to be reminded of Calvin and his interestingtraits. Mr. Warner says: "I never had but one cat, and he was rather afriend and companion than a cat. When he departed this life I did notcare to do as many men do when their partners die, take a 'second. '" Thesketch of him in that delightful book is vouched for as correct. 

Mr. Edmund Clarence Stedman, too, is a genuine admirer of cats andevidently knows how to appreciate them at their true value. At his homenear New York, he and Mrs. Stedman have one who rejoices in the name"Babylon, " having originated in Babylon, Long Island. He is a fine largemaltese, and attracted a great deal of attention at the New York CatShow in 1895. "We look upon him as an important member of our family, "says Mrs. Stedman, "and think he knows as much as any of us. He despisesour two other cats, but he is very fond of human beings and makesfriends readily with strangers. He is always present at the familydinner table at meal-time and expects to have his share handed to himcarefully. He has a favorite corner in the study and has superintended agreat deal of literary work. " Mrs. Stedman's long-haired, blue Kelpietook a prize in the show of '95. 

Gail Hamilton was naturally a lover of cats, although in her crowdedlife there was not much time to devote to them. In the last year of hernoble life she wrote to a friend as follows: "My two hands were eager tolighten the burden-bearing of a burdened world--but the brush fell frommy hand. Now I can only sit in a nook of November sunshine, playing withtwo little black and white kittens. Well, I never before had time toplay with kittens as much as I wished, and when I come outdoors and seethem bounding toward me in long, light leaps, I am glad that they leaptoward me and not away from me, little soft, fierce sparks of infiniteenergy holding a mystery of their own as inscrutable as life. And Iremember that with all our high art, the common daily sun searches a manfor one revealing moment, and makes a truer portrait than the mostlaborious painter. The divine face of our Saviour, reflected in the pureand noble traits of humanity, will not fail from the earth because myhand has failed in cunning. "

One would expect a poet of Ella Wheeler Wilcox's temperament to bepassionately fond of cats, just as she is. One would expect, too, thatonly the most beautiful and luxurious of Persians and Angoras wouldsatisfy her demand for a pet. This is also justifiable, as she hasseveral magnificent cats, about whom she has published a number ofinteresting stories. Her Madame Ref is quite a noted cat, but Mrs. Wilcox's favorite and the handsomest of all is named Banjo, a gorgeouschinchilla and white Angora, with a silken coat that almost touches thefloor and a ruff, or "lord mayor's chain, " that is a finger wide. Hisfather was Ajax, his mother was Madame Ref, and Mrs. Wilcox raised him. She has taught him many cunning tricks. He will sit up like a bear, andwhen his mistress says, "Hug me, Banjo, " he puts both white paws aroundher neck and hugs her tight. Then she says, "Turn the other cheek, " andhe turns his furry chops for her to kiss. He also plays "dead, " androlls over at command. He, too, is fond of literary work, andsuperintends his mistress's writing from a drawer of her desk. GoodyTwo-eyes is another of Mrs. Wilcox's pets, and has one blue and onetopaz eye. 

Who has not read Agnes Repplier's fascinating essays on "Agrippina" and"A Kitten"? I cannot quite believe she gives cats credit for thecapacity for affection which they really possess, but her description of"Agrippina" is charming:--

"Agrippina's beautifully ringed tail flapping across my copy distractsmy attention and imperils the neatness of my penmanship. Even when sheis disposed to be affable, turns the light of her countenance upon me, watches with attentive curiosity every stroke I make, and softly, withcurved paw, pats my pen as it travels over the paper, even in thesehalcyon moments, though my self-love is flattered by her condescension, I am aware that I should work better and more rapidly if I denied myselfthis charming companionship. But, in truth, it is impossible for a loverof cats to banish these alert, gentle, and discriminating littlefriends, who give us just enough of their regard and complaisance tomake us hunger for more. M. Fee, the naturalist, who has written soadmirably about animals, and who understands, as only a Frenchman canunderstand, the delicate and subtle organization of a cat, franklyadmits that the keynote of its character is independence. It dwellsunder our roofs, sleeps by our fire, endures our blandishments, andapparently enjoys our society, without for one moment forfeiting itssense of absolute freedom, without acknowledging any servile relation tothe human creature who shelters it. 

"Rude and masterful souls resent this fine self-sufficiency in adomestic animal, and require that it shall have no will but theirs, nopleasure that does not emanate from them. 

"Yet there are people, less magisterial, perhaps, or less exacting, whobelieve that true friendship, even with an animal, may be built up onmutual esteem and independence; that to demand gratitude is to beunworthy of it; and that obedience is not essential to agreeable andhealthy intercourse. A man who owns a dog is, in every sense of theword, its master: the term expresses accurately their mutual relations. But it is ridiculous when applied to the limited possession of a cat. Iam certainly not Agrippina's mistress, and the assumption of authorityon my part would be a mere empty dignity, like those swelling titleswhich afford such innocent delight to the Freemasons of our severerepublic. 

"How many times have I rested tired eyes on her graceful little body, curled up in a ball and wrapped round with her tail like a parcel; orstretched out luxuriously on my bed, one paw coyly covering her face, the other curved gently inwards, as though clasping an invisibletreasure. Asleep or awake, in rest or in motion, grave or gay, Agrippinais always beautiful; and it is better to be beautiful than to fetch andcarry from the rising to the setting of the sun. 

"But when Agrippina has breakfasted and washed, and sits in the sunlightblinking at me with affectionate contempt, I feel soothed by herabsolute and unqualified enjoyment. I know how full my day will be ofthings that I don't want particularly to do, and that are notparticularly worth doing; but for her, time and the world hold only thisbrief moment of contentment. Slowly the eyes close, gently the littlebody is relaxed. Oh, you who strive to relieve your overwrought nervesand cultivate power through repose, watch the exquisite languor of adrowsy cat, and despair of imitating such perfect and restful grace. There is a gradual yielding of every muscle to the soft persuasivenessof slumber: the flexible frame is curved into tender lines, the headnestles lower, the paws are tucked out of sight: no convulsive throb orstart betrays a rebellious alertness: only a faint quiver of unconscioussatisfaction, a faint heaving of the tawny sides, a faint gleam of thehalf-shut yellow eyes, and Agrippina is asleep. I look at her for onewistful moment and then turn resolutely to my work. It were ignoble towish myself in her place: and yet how charming to be able to settle downto a nap, _sans peur et sans reproche_, at ten o'clock in themorning. "

And again: "When I am told that Agrippina is disobedient, ungrateful, cold-hearted, perverse, stupid, treacherous, and cruel, I no longerstrive to check the torrent of abuse. I know that Buffon said all this, and much more, about cats, and that people have gone on repeating itever since, principally because these spirited little beasts haveremained just what it pleased Providence to make them, have preservedtheir primitive freedom through centuries of effete and demoralizingcivilization. Why, I wonder, should a great many good men and womencherish an unreasonable grudge against one animal because it does notchance to possess the precise qualities of another? 'My dog fetches myslippers for me every night, ' said a friend, triumphantly, not long ago. 'He puts them first to warm by the fire, and then brings them over to mychair, wagging his tail, and as proud as Punch. Would your cat do asmuch for you, I'd like to know?' Assuredly not. If I waited forAgrippina to fetch me shoes or slippers, I should have no other resourcesave to join as speedily as possible one of the barefooted religiousorders of Italy. But after all, fetching slippers is not the whole dutyof domestic pets. 

"As for curiosity, that vice which the Abbé Galiani held to be unknownto animals, but which the more astute Voltaire detected in every littledog that he saw peering out of the window of its master's coach, it isthe ruling passion of the feline breast. A closet door left ajar, a boxwith half-closed lid, an open bureau drawer, --these are the objects thatfill a cat with the liveliest interest and delight. Agrippina watchesbreathlessly the unfastening of a parcel, and tries to hasten matters byclutching actively at the string. When its contents are shown to her, she examines them gravely, and then, with a sigh of relief, settles downto repose. The slightest noise disturbs and irritates her until shediscovers its cause. If she hears a footstep in the hall, she runs outto see whose it is, and, like certain troublesome little people I haveknown, she dearly loves to go to the front door every time the bell isrung. From my window she surveys the street with tranquil scrutiny, andif the boys are playing below, she follows their games with a steady, scornful stare, very different from the wistful eagerness of a friendlydog, quivering to join in the sport. Sometimes the boys catch sight ofher, and shout up rudely at her window; and I can never sufficientlyadmire Agrippina's conduct upon these trying occasions, the well-bredcomposure with which she affects neither to see nor to hear them, nor tobe aware that there are such objectionable creatures as children in theworld. Sometimes, too, the terrier that lives next door comes out to sunhimself in the street, and, beholding my cat sitting well out of reach, he dances madly up and down the pavement, barking with all his might, and rearing himself on his short legs, in a futile attempt to dislodgeher. Then the spirit of evil enters Agrippina's little heart. The windowis open and she creeps to the extreme edge of the stone sill, stretchesherself at full length, peers down smilingly at the frenzied dog, dangles one paw enticingly in the air, and exerts herself with quietmalice to drive him to desperation. Her sense of humor is awakened byhis frantic efforts and by her own absolute security; and not until heis spent with exertion, and lies panting and exhausted on the bricks, does she arch her graceful back, stretch her limbs lazily in the sun, and with one light bound spring from the window to my desk. "

And what more delightful word did ever Miss Repplier write than herdescription of a kitten? It, she says, "is the most irresistiblecomedian in the world. Its wide-open eyes gleam with wonder and mirth. It darts madly at nothing at all, and then, as though suddenly checkedin the pursuit, prances sideways on its hind legs with ridiculousagility and zeal. It makes a vast pretence of climbing the rounds of achair, and swings by the curtains like an acrobat. It scrambles up atable leg, and is seized with comic horror at finding itself full twofeet from the floor. If you hasten to its rescue, it clutches younervously, its little heart thumping against its furry sides, while itssoft paws expand and contract with agitation and relief:--

 "'And all their harmless claws disclose, Like prickles of an early rose. '

"Yet the instant it is back on the carpet it feigns to be suspicious ofyour interference, peers at you out of 'the tail o' its e'e, ' andscampers for protection under the sofa, from which asylum it presentlyemerges with cautious, trailing steps as though encompassed by fearfuldangers and alarms. "

Nobody can sympathize with her in the following description better thanI, who for years was compelled by the insistence of my Pretty Lady toaid in the bringing up of infants:--

"I own that when Agrippina brought her first-born son--aged twodays--and established him in my bedroom closet, the plan struck me atthe start as inconvenient. I had prepared another nursery for the littleClaudius Nero, and I endeavored for a while to convince his mother thatmy arrangements were best. But Agrippina was inflexible. The closetsuited her in every respect; and, with charming and irresistibleflattery, she gave me to understand, in the mute language I knew sowell, that she wished her baby boy to be under my immediate protection. 

"'I bring him to you because I trust you, ' she said as plainly as lookscan speak. 'Downstairs they handle him all the time, and it is not goodfor kittens to be handled. Here he is safe from harm, and here he shallremain, ' After a few weak remonstrances, the futility of which I tooclearly understood, her persistence carried the day. I removed myclothing from the closet, spread a shawl upon the floor, had the doortaken from its hinges, and resigned myself, for the first time in mylife, to the daily and hourly companionship of an infant. 

"I was amply rewarded. People who require the household cat to rear heroffspring in some remote attic or dark corner of the cellar have no ideaof all the diversion and pleasure that they lose. It is delightful towatch the little, blind, sprawling, feeble, helpless things developswiftly into the grace and agility of kittenhood. It is delightful tosee the mingled pride and anxiety of the mother, whose parental loveincreases with every hour of care, and who exhibits her young family asif they were infant Gracchi, the hope of all their race. During Nero'sextreme youth, there were times when Agrippina wearied both of hiscompanionship and of her own maternal duties. Once or twice sheabandoned him at night for the greater luxury of my bed, where she slepttranquilly by my side, unmindful of the little wailing cries with whichNero lamented her desertion. Once or twice the heat of early summertempted her to spend the evening on the porch roof which lay beneath mywindows, and I have passed some anxious hours awaiting her return, andwondering what would happen if she never came back, and I were left tobring up the baby by hand. 

"But as the days sped on, and Nero grew rapidly in beauty andintelligence, Agrippina's affection for him knew no bounds. She couldhardly bear to leave him even for a little while, and always camehurrying back to him with a loud, frightened mew, as if fearing he mighthave been stolen in her absence. At night she purred over him for hours, or made little gurgling noises expressive of ineffable content. Sheresented the careless curiosity of strangers, and was a triflesupercilious when the cook stole softly in to give vent to her ferventadmiration. But from first to last she shared with me her pride andpleasure; and the joy in her beautiful eyes, as she raised them to mine, was frankly confiding and sympathetic. When the infant Claudius rolledfor the first time over the ledge of the closet and lay sprawling on thebedroom floor, it would have been hard to say which of us was the moreelated at his prowess. "

What became of these most interesting cats, is only hinted at; MissRepplier's sincere grief at their loss is evident in the following:--

"Every night they retired at the same time and slept upon the samecushion, curled up inextricably into one soft, furry ball. Many times Ihave knelt by their chair to bid them both good night; and always when Idid so, Agrippina would lift her charming head, purr drowsily for a fewseconds, and then nestle closer still to her first-born, with sighs ofsupreme satisfaction. The zenith of her life had been reached. Her cupof contentment was full. 

"It is a rude world, even for little cats, and evil chances lie in waitfor the petted creatures we strive to shield from harm. Remembering thepangs of separation, the possibilities of unkindness or neglect, thetroubles that hide in ambush on every unturned page, I am sometimes gladthat the same cruel and selfish blow struck both mother and son, andthat they lie together, safe from hurt or hazard, sleeping tranquillyand always, under the shadow of the friendly pines. "

Probably no modern cat has been more written about than Miss Mary L. Booth's Muff. There was a "Tippet, " but he was early lost. Miss Booth, as the editor of _Harper's Bazar_, was the centre of a large circleof literary and musical people. Her Saturday evenings were to New Yorkwhat Mrs. Moulton's Fridays are to Boston, the nearest approach to theFrench salon possible in America. At these Saturday evenings Muff alwaysfigured prominently, being dressed in a real lace collar (brought himfrom Yucatan by Madame la Plongeon, and elaborate and expensive enoughfor the most fastidious lady), and apparently enjoying the company ofnoted intellectual people as well as the best of them. And who knows, ifhe had spoken, what light he might have shed on what seemed to meremortals as mysterious, abstruse, and occult problems? Perhaps, afterall, he liked that "salon" because in reality he found so much to amusehim in the conversation; and perhaps he was, under that guise offriendly interest in noted scientists, reformers, poets, musicians, andlitterateurs, only whispering to himself, "O Lord, what fools thesemortals be!"

"For when I play with my cat, " says Montaigne, "how do I know whethershe does not make a jest of me?"

But Muff was a real nobleman among cats, and extraordinarily handsome. He was a great soft gray maltese with white paws and breast--mild, amiable, and uncommonly intelligent. He felt it his duty to helpentertain Miss Booth's guests, always; and he more than once, at thebeginning of a reception, came into the drawing-room with a mouse in hismouth as his offering to the occasion. Naturally enough "he caused thestampede, " as Mrs. Spofford puts it, "that Mr. Gilbert forgot to putinto 'Princess Ida' when her Amazons wild demonstrate their courage. "

As one of Miss Booth's intimate friends, Mrs. Spofford was much at herhouse and became early a devoted admirer of Muff's. 

"His latter days, " she says, "were rendered miserable by a little silky, gray creature, an Angora named Vashti, who was a spark of the fire ofthe lower regions wrapped round in long silky fur, and who never let himalone one moment: who was full of tail-lashings and racings and leapingsand fury, and of the most demonstrative love for her mistress. Once Imade them collars with breastplates of tiny dangling bells, nine or ten;it excited them nearly to madness, and they flew up and down stairs likeunchained lightning till the trinkets were taken off. "

In a house full of birds Muff never touched one, although he was anexcellent mouser (who says cats have no conscience?). He was, althoughso socially inclined toward his mistress's guests, a timid person, andthe wild back-yard cats filled him with terror. 

"But as one must see something of the world, " continues Mrs. Spofford, "he used to jump from lintel to lintel of the windows of the block, ifby chance his own were left open, and return when he pleased. "

Muff died soon after the death of Miss Booth. Vashti, who was very muchadmired by all her mistress's literary friends, was given to Miss JulietCorson. 

Miss Edna Dean Proctor, the poet, is another admirer of fine cats. Herfavorite, however, was the friend of her childhood called Beauty. 

"Beauty was my grandmother's cat, " says Miss Proctor, "and the delightof my childhood. To this far-off day I remember her as distinctly as Ido my aunt and cousins of that household, and even my dear grandmotherherself. I know nothing of her ancestry and am not at all sure that shewas royally bred, for she came, one chill night, a little wanderer tothe door. But a shred of blue ribbon was clinging to her neck, and shewas so pretty, and silky, and winsome that we children at once calledher Beauty, and fancied she had strayed from some elegant home where shehad been the pet of the household, lapping her milk from finest chinaand sleeping on a cushion of down. When we had warmed, and fed, andcaressed her, we made her bed in a flannel-lined box among our dolls, and the next morning were up before the sun to see her, fearing herowners would appear and carry her away. But no one arrived to claim her, and she soon became an important member of the family, and grewhandsomer, we thought, day by day. Her coat was gray with tigermarkings, but paws and throat and nose were snowy white, and in spite ofher excursions to barns and cellars her constant care kept themspotless--indeed, she was the very Venus of cats for daintiness andgrace of pose and movement. To my grandmother her various attitudes hadan undoubted meaning. If in a rainy day Beauty washed her face towardthe west, her observant mistress would exclaim: 'See, kitty is washingher face to the west. It will clear. ' Or, even when the sky was blue, ifBeauty turned eastward for her toilet, the comment would be: 'Kitty iswashing her face to the east. The wind must be getting "out" (from thesea), and a storm brewing. ' And when in the dusk of autumn or winterevenings Beauty ran about the room, chasing her tail or frolicking withher kittens instead of sleeping quietly by the fire as was her wont, mygrandmother would look up and say: 'Kitty is wild to-night. The windwill blow hard before morning. ' If I sometimes asked how she knew thesethings, the reply would be, 'My mother told me when I was a littlegirl. ' Now her mother, my great-grandmother, was a distinguishedpersonage in my eyes, having been the daughter of Captain JonathanPrescott who commanded a company under Sir William Pepperell at thesiege of Louisburg and lost his life there; and I could not question thewisdom of colonial times. Indeed, to this hour I have a lingering beliefthat cats can foretell the weather. 

"And what a mouser she was! Before her time we often heard the rats andmice in the walls, but with her presence not one dared to peep, andcupboard and pantry were unmolested. Now and then she carried her foraysto hedge and orchard, and I remember one sad summer twilight that sawher bring in a slender brown bird which my grandmother said was thecuckoo we had delighted to hear in the still mornings among the aldersby the river. She was scolded and had no milk that night, and we neverknew her to catch a bird again. 

"O to see her with her kittens! She always hid them in the haymows, andhunting and finding them brought us no end of excitement and pleasure. Twice a day, at least, she would come to the house to be fed, and thenhow we watched her returning steps, stealing cautiously along the pathand waiting behind stack or door the better to observe her--for pussyknew perfectly well that we were eager to see her darlings, and enjoyedmisleading and piquing us, we imagined, by taking devious ways. How wellI recall that summer afternoon when, soft-footed and alone, I followedher to the floor of the barn. Just as she was about to spring to the mowshe espied me, and, turning back, cunningly settled herself as if for aquiet nap in the sunny open door. Determined not to lose sight of her, Ithrew myself upon the fragrant hay; but in the stillness, the faintsighing of the wind, the far-off ripple of the river, the hazy outlineof the hills, the wheeling swallows overhead, were blended at length inan indistinct dream, and I slept, oblivious of all. When I woke, pussyhad disappeared, the sun was setting, the cows were coming from thepastures, and I could only return to the house discomfited. Thatparticular family of kittens we never saw till a fortnight later, whenthe proud mother brought them in one by one, and laid them at mygrandmother's feet. 

"What became of Beauty is as mysterious as the fate of the Dauphin. Toour grief, she disappeared one November day, and we never saw her more. Sometimes we fancied she had been carried off by an admiring traveller:at others we tortured ourselves with the belief that the traditionalwildcat of the north woods had devoured her. All we knew was that shehad vanished; but when memory pictures that pleasant country home andthe dear circle there, white-throated Beauty is always sleeping by thefire. "

Miss Fidelia Bridges, the artist, is another devoted cat lover, and ather home at Canaan, Ct. , has had several interesting specimens. 

"Among my many generations of pet cats, " says Miss Bridges, "onearistocratic maltese lady stands out in prominence before all the rest. She was a cat of great personal beauty and independence of character--aremarkable huntress, bringing in game almost as large as herself, holding her beautiful head aloft to keep the great wings of pigeons fromtrailing on the ground. She and her mother were fast friends from birthto death. When the young maltese had her first brood of kittens, hermother had also a family in another barrel in the cellar. When we wentto see the just-arrived family, we found our Lady Malty's bed empty, andthere in her mother's barrel were both families and both mothers. Adelightful arrangement for the young mother, who could leave herchildren in the grandmother's care and enjoy her liberty when it pleasedher to roam abroad. The young lady had an indomitable will, and when shedecided to do a thing nothing would turn her aside. She found a favoriteresting-place on a pile of blankets in a dark attic room. This beingdisapproved of by the elders, the door was kept carefully closed. Shethen found entrance through a stove-pipe hole, high up on the wall of anadjoining room. A cover was hung over the hole. She sprang up andknocked it off. Then, as a last resort, the hole was papered over likethe wall-paper of the room. She looked, made a leap, and crashed throughthe paper with as merry an air as a circus-rider through his paperedhoop. She had a habit of manoeuvring to be shut out of doors atbed-time, and then, when all was still, climbing up to my window bymeans of a porch over a door beneath it, to pass the night on my bed. Insome alterations of the house, the porch was taken away. She looked withdismay for a moment at the destruction of her ladder, then calmly ran upthe side of the house to my window, which she always after continued todo. 

"Next in importance, perhaps, is my present intimate companion, now tenyears old and absolutely deaf, so that we communicate with signs. If Iwant to attract his attention I step on the floor: if to go to hisdinner, I show him a certain blue plate: to call him in at night, I takea lantern outside the door, and the flash of light attracts hisattention from a great distance. On one occasion he lived nine monthsalone in the house while I made a trip to Europe, absolutely refusingall the neighbors' invitations to enter any other house. A friend'sgardener brought him his daily rations. As warm weather came, he spenthis days in the fields, returning in the night for his food, so that atmy return it was two or three days before he discovered that the housewas open. The third evening he entered the open door, looked wildlyabout for a moment, but when I put my hand on him suddenly recognized meand overwhelmed me with affectionate caresses, and for two days andnights would not allow me out of his sight, unable to eat or sleepunless I was close at hand, and following me from room to room and chairto chair. And people say that cats have no affection!"

At the Quincy House in Boston may be seen in the office an oil paintingof an immense yellow cat. The first time I noticed the picture, I wasproceeding into the dining room, and while waiting for dinner, wasamused at seeing the original of the picture walk sedately in, allalone, and going to an empty table, seat himself with majestic grace ina chair. The waiter, seeing him, came forward and pushed up the chair ashe would do for any other guest. The cat then waited patiently withoutputting his paws on the table, or violating any other law of tableetiquette, until a plate of meat came, cut up to suit his taste (I didnot hear him give his order), and then, placing his front paws on theedge of the table, he ate from his plate. When he had finished, hedescended from his table and stalked out of the room with much dignity. He was always regular at his meals, and although he picked out a goodseat, did not always sit at the same table. He was in appearancesomething like the famous orange cats of Venice, and attracted muchattention, as might be expected, up to his death, at a ripe old age. 

Miss Frances Willard was a cat-lover, too, and had a beautiful cat whichis known to all her friends. 

"Tootsie" went to Rest Cottage, the home of Frances Willard, when only akitten, and there he lived, the pet of the household and its guests, until several years ago, when Miss Willard prepared to go abroad. Thenshe took Tootsie in her arms, carried him to the Drexel kennels inChicago, and asked their owner, Mrs. Leland Norton, to admit him as amember of her large cat family, where he still lives. To his praise beit spoken, he has never forgotten his old friends at Rest Cottage. Tothis day, whenever any of them come to call upon him, he honors themwith instant and hearty recognition. Miss Willard was sometimes forcedto be separated from him more than a year at a time, but neither timenor change had any effect upon Tootsie. At the first sound of her voicehe would spring to her side. He is a magnificent Angora, weighingtwenty-four pounds, with the long, silky hair, the frill, or lordmayor's chain, the superb curling tail, and the large, full eyes of thethoroughbred. Then he has proved himself of aristocratic tendencies, hasbeautiful manners, is endowed with the human qualities of memory anddiscrimination, and is aesthetic in his tastes. 

Being the privileged character that he is, Tootsie always eats at thetable with the family. He has his own chair and bib, and his manners aresaid to be exquisite. 

CHAPTER V

CONCERNING SOME HISTORIC CATS

It is quite common for writers on the cat to say, "The story ofThéophile Gautier's cats is too familiar to need comment. " On thecontrary, I do not believe it is familiar to the average reader, andthat only those who know Gautier's "Ménagerie In-time" in the original, recall the particulars of his "White and Black Dynasties. " For thisreason they shall be repeated in these pages. I use Mrs. Cashel-Hoey'stranslation, partly in a selfish desire to save myself time and labor, but principally because she has preserved so successfully thesympathetic and appreciative spirit of M. Gautier himself. 

"Dynasties of cats, as numerous as those of the Egyptian kings, succeeded each other in my dwelling, " says he. "One after another theywere swept away by accident, by flight, by death. All were loved andregretted: but life is made up of oblivion, and the memory of cats diesout like the memory of men. " After making mention of an old gray cat whoalways took his part against his parents, and used to bite MadameGautier's legs when she presumed to reprove her son, he passes on atonce to the romantic period, and the commemoration of Childebrand. 

"This name at once reveals a deep design of flouting Boileau, whom I didnot like then, but have since become reconciled to. Has not Nicholassaid:--

 "'O le plaisant projet d'un poëte ignorant Que de tant de héros va choisir Childebrant!'

"Now I considered Childebrand a very fine name indeed, Merovingian, mediaeval, and Gothic, and vastly preferable to Agamemnon, Achilles, Ulysses, or any Greek name whatsoever. Romanticism was the fashion of myearly days: I have no doubt the people of classical times called theircats Hector, Ajax, or Patroclus. Childebrand was a splendid cat ofcommon kind, tawny and striped with black, like the hose of Saltabadilin 'Le Rois' Amuse. ' With his large, green, almond-shaped eyes, and hissymmetrical stripes, there was something tigerlike about him thatpleased me. Childebrand had the honor of figuring in some verses that Iwrote to 'flout' Boileau:--

 "Puis je te décrirai ce tableau de Rembrandt Que me fait tant plaisir: et mon chat Childebrand, Sur mes genoux pose selon son habitude, Levant sur moi la tête avec inquiétude, Suivra les mouvements de mon doigt qui dans l'air Esquisse mon récit pour le rendre plus clair. 

"Childebrand was brought in there to make a good rhyme for Rembrandt, the piece being a kind of confession of the romantic faith made to afriend, who was then as enthusiastic as myself about Victor Hugo, SainteBeuve, and Alfred de Musset.... I come next to Madame Théophile, a 'red'cat, with a white breast, a pink nose, and blue eyes, whom I called bythat name because we were on terms of the closest intimacy. She slept atthe foot of my bed: she sat on the arm of my chair while I wrote: shecame down into the garden and gravely walked about with me: she waspresent at all my meals, and frequently intercepted a choice morsel onits way from my plate to my mouth. One day a friend who was going awayfor a short time, brought me his parrot, to be taken care of during hisabsence. The bird, finding itself in a strange place, climbed up to thetop of its perch by the aid of its beak, and rolled its eyes (as yellowas the nails in my arm-chair) in a rather frightened manner, also movingthe white membranes that formed its eyelids. Madame Théophile had neverseen a parrot, and she regarded the creature with manifest surprise. While remaining as motionless as a cat mummy from Egypt in its swathingbands, she fixed her eyes upon the bird with a look of profoundmeditation, summoning up all the notions of natural history that she hadpicked up in the yard, in the garden, and on the roof. The shadow of herthoughts passed over her changing eyes, and we could plainly read inthem the conclusion to which her scrutiny led, 'Decidedly this is agreen chicken. '

"This result attained, the next proceeding of Madame Théophile was tojump off the table from which she had made her observations, and layherself flat on the ground in a corner of the room, exactly in theattitude of the panther in Gérôme's picture watching the gazelles asthey come down to drink at a lake. The parrot followed the movements ofthe cat with feverish anxiety: it ruffled its feathers, rattled itschain, lifted one of its feet and shook the claws, and rubbed its beakagainst the edge of its trough. Instinct told it that the cat was anenemy and meant mischief. The cat's eyes were now fixed upon the birdwith fascinating intensity, and they said in perfectly intelligiblelanguage, which the poor parrot distinctly understood, 'This chickenought to be good to eat, although it is green. ' We watched the scenewith great interest, ready to interfere at need. Madame Théophile wascreeping nearer and nearer almost imperceptibly; her pink nose quivered, her eyes were half closed, her contractile claws moved in and out oftheir velvet sheaths, slight thrills of pleasure ran along her backboneat the idea of the meal she was about to make. Such novel and exoticfood excited her appetite. 

"All in an instant her back took the shape of a bent bow, and with avigorous and elastic bound she sprang upon the perch. The parrot, seeingits danger, said in a bass voice as grave and deep as M. Prudhomme'sown, 'As tu déjeuné, Jacquot?'

"This utterance so terrified the cat that she sprang backwards. Theblare of a trumpet, the crash and smash of a pile of plates flung to theground, a pistol shot fired off at her ear, could not have frightenedher more thoroughly. All her ornithological ideas were overthrown. 

"'Et de quoi? Du rôti du roi?' continued the parrot. 

"Then might we, the observers, read in the physiognomy of MadameThéophile, 'This is not a bird, it is a gentleman; it talks. '

 "'Quand j'ai bu du vin clairet, Tout tourne, tout tourne an cabaret, '

shrieked the parrot in a deafening voice, for it had perceived that itsbest means of defence was the terror aroused by its speech. The cat casta glance at me which was full of questioning, but as my response was notsatisfactory, she promptly hid herself under the bed, and from thatrefuge she could not be induced to stir during the whole of the day. People who are not accustomed to live with animals, and who, likeDescartes, regard them as mere machines, will think that I lendunauthorized meanings to the acts of the 'volatile' and the 'quadruped, 'but I have only faithfully translated their ideas into human language. The next day Madame Théophile plucked up courage and made anotherattempt, which was similarly repulsed. From that moment she gave it up, accepting the bird as a variety of man. 

"This dainty and charming animal was extremely fond of perfumes, especially of patchouli and the scent exhaled by India shawls. She wasalso very fond of music, and would listen, sitting on a pile ofmusic-books, while the fair singers who came to try the critic's pianofilled his room with melody. All the time Madame Théophile would evincegreat pleasure. She was, however, made nervous by certain notes, and atthe high _la_ she would tap the singer's mouth with her paw. Thiswas very amusing, and my visitors delighted in making the experiment. Itnever failed; the dilettante in fun was not to be deceived. 

"The rule of the 'White Dynasty' belonged to a later epoch, and wasinaugurated in the person of a pretty little kitten as white as a powderpuff, who came from Havana. On account of his spotless whiteness he wascalled Pierrot; but when he grew up this name was very properlymagnified into Don-Pierrot-de-Navarre, which was far more majestic, andsuggested 'grandee-ism. ' [M. Théophile Gautier lays it down as a dogmathat all animals with whom one is much taken up, and who are 'spoiled, 'become delightfully good and amiable. Don-Pierrot-de-Navarresuccessfully supported his master's theory; perhaps he suggested it. ]

"He shared in the life of the household with the enjoyment of quietfireside friendship that is characteristic of cats. He had his own placenear the fire, and there he would sit with a convincing air ofcomprehension of all that was talked of and of interest in it; hefollowed the looks of the speakers, and uttered little sounds towardthem as though he, too, had objections to make and opinions to give uponthe literary subjects which were most frequently discussed. He was veryfond of books, and when he found one open on a table he would lie downon it, turn over the edges of the leaves with his paws, and after awhile fall asleep, for all the world as if he had been reading afashionable novel. He was deeply interested in my writing, too; themoment I took up my pen he would jump upon the desk, and follow themovement of the penholder with the gravest attention, making a littlemovement with his head at the beginning of each line. Sometimes he wouldtry to take the pen out of my hand. 

"Don-Pierrot-de-Navarre never went to bed until I had come in. He wouldwait for me just inside the outer door and rub himself to my legs, hisback in an arch, with a glad and friendly purring. Then he would go onbefore me, preceding me with a page-like air, and I have no doubt, if Ihad asked him, he would have carried the candlestick. Having thusconducted me to my bedroom, he would wait quietly while I undressed, andthen jump on my bed, take my neck between his paws, gently rub my nosewith his own, and lick me with his small, pink tongue, as rough as afile, uttering all the time little inarticulate cries, which expressedas clearly as any words could do his perfect satisfaction at having mewith him again. After these caresses he would perch himself on the backof the bedstead and sleep there, carefully balanced, like a bird on abranch. When I awoke, he would come down and lie beside me until I gotup. 

"Pierrot was as strict as a concierge in his notions of the proper hourfor all good people to return to their homes. He did not approve ofanything later than midnight. In those days we had a little societyamong friends, which we called 'The Four Candles, '--the light in ourplace of meeting being restricted to four candles in silvercandlesticks, placed at the four corners of the tables. Sometimes thetalk became so animated that I forgot all about time, and twice or threetimes Pierrot sat up for me until two o'clock in the morning. After awhile, however, my conduct in this respect displeased him, and heretired to rest without me. I was touched by this mute protest againstmy innocent dissipation, and thenceforth came home regularly at twelveo'clock. Nevertheless, Pierrot cherished the memory of my offence forsome time; he waited to test the reality of my repentance, but when hewas convinced that my conversion was sincere, he deigned to restore meto his good graces, and resumed his nocturnal post in the anteroom. 

"To gain the friendship of a cat is a difficult thing. The cat is aphilosophical, methodical, quiet animal, tenacious of its own habits, fond of order and cleanliness, and it does not lightly confer itsfriendship. If you are worthy of its affection, a cat will be yourfriend, but never your slave. He keeps his free will, though he loves, and he will not do for you what he thinks unreasonable; but if he oncegives himself to you, it is with such absolute confidence, such fidelityof affection. He makes himself the companion of your hours of solitude, melancholy, and toil. He remains for whole evenings on your knee, uttering his contented purr, happy to be with you, and forsaking thecompany of animals of his own species. In vain do melodious mewings onthe roof invite him to one of those cat parties in which fish bones playthe part of tea and cakes; he is not to be tempted away from you. Puthim down and he will jump up again, with a sort of cooing sound that islike a gentle reproach; and sometimes he will sit upon the carpet infront of you, looking at you with eyes so melting, so caressing, and sohuman, that they almost frighten you, for it is impossible to believethat a soul is not there. 

"Don-Pierrot-de-Navarre had a sweetheart of the same race and of assnowy a whiteness as himself. The ermine would have looked yellow by theside of Seraphita, for so this lovely creature was named, in honor ofBalzac's Swedenborgian romance. Seraphita was of a dreamy andcontemplative disposition. She would sit on a cushion for hourstogether, quite motionless, not asleep, and following with her eyes, ina rapture of attention, sights invisible to mere mortals. Caresses wereagreeable to her, but she returned them in a very reserved manner, andonly in the case of persons whom she favored with her rarely accordedesteem. She was fond of luxury, and it was always upon the handsomesteasy-chair, or the rug that would best show off her snowy fur, that shewould surely be found. She devoted a great deal of time to her toilet, her glossy coat was carefully smoothed every morning. She washed herselfwith her paw, and licked every atom of her fur with her pink tongueuntil it shone like new silver. When any one touched her, she instantlyeffaced all trace of the contact; she could not endure to be tumbled. Anidea of aristocracy was suggested by her elegance and distinction, andamong her own people she was a duchess at least. She delighted inperfumes, would stick her nose into bouquets, bite scented handkerchiefswith little spasms of pleasure, and walk about among the scent bottleson the toilet table, smelling at their stoppers; no doubt, she wouldhave used the powder puff if she had been permitted. Such was Seraphita, and never did cat more amply justify a poetic name. I must mention herethat, in the days of the White Dynasty, I was also the happy possessorof a family of white rats, and that the cats, always supposed to betheir natural, invariable, and irreconcilable enemies, lived in perfectharmony with my pet rodents. The rats never showed the slightestdistrust of the cats, nor did the cats ever betray their confidence. Don-Pierrot-de-Navarre was very much attached to them. He would sitclose to their cage and observe their gambols for hours together, and ifby any chance the door of the room in which they were left was shut, hewould scratch and mew gently until some one came to open it and allowhim to rejoin his little white friends, who would often come out of thecage and sleep close to him. Seraphita, who was of a more reserved anddisdainful temper, and who disliked the musky odor of the white rats, took no part in their games; but she never did them any harm, and wouldlet them pass before her without putting out a claw. 

"Don-Pierrot-de-Navarre, who came from Havana, required a hothousetemperature: and this he always had in his own apartments. The housewas, however, surrounded by extensive gardens, divided by railings, through and over which cats could easily climb, and in those gardenswere trees inhabited by a great number of birds. Pierrot wouldfrequently take advantage of an open door to get out of an evening andgo a-hunting through the wet grass and flower-beds: and, as his mewingunder the windows when he wanted to get in again did not always awakenthe sleepers in the house, he frequently had to stay out until morning. His chest was delicate, and one very chilly night he caught a cold whichrapidly developed into phthisis. At the end of a year of coughing, poorDon Pierrot had wasted to a skeleton, and his coat, once so silky, was adull, harsh white. His large, transparent eyes looked unnaturally largein his shrunken face: the pink of his little nose had faded, and hedragged himself slowly along the sunny side of the wall with amelancholy air, looking at the yellow autumnal leaves as they danced andwhirled in the wind. Nothing is so touching as a sick animal: it submitsto suffering with such gentle and sad resignation. We did all in ourpower to save Pierrot: a skilful doctor came to see him, felt his pulse, sounded his lungs, and ordered him ass's milk. He drank the prescribedbeverage very readily out of his own especial china saucer. For hourstogether he lay stretched upon my knee, like the shadow of a sphinx. Ifelt his spine under my finger tips like the beads of a rosary, and hetried to respond to my caresses by a feeble purr that resembled adeath-rattle. On the day of his death he was lying on his side panting, and suddenly, with a supreme effort, he rose and came to me. His largeeyes were opened wide, and he gazed at me with a look of intensesupplication, a look that seemed to say, 'Save me, save me, you, who area man. ' Then he made a few faltering steps, his eyes became glassy, andhe fell down, uttering so lamentable a cry, so dreadful and full ofanguish, that I was struck dumb and motionless with horror. He wasburied at the bottom of the garden under a white rose tree, which stillmarks the place of his sepulture. Three years later Seraphita died, andwas buried by the side of Don Pierrot. With her the White Dynasty becameextinct, but not the family. This snow-white couple had three children, who were as black as ink. Let any one explain that mystery who can. Thekittens were born in the early days of the great renown of Victor Hugo's'Les Miserables, ' when everybody was talking of the new masterpiece, andthe names of the personages in it were in every mouth. The two littlemale creatures were called Enjolras and Gavroche, and their sisterreceived the name of Eponine. They were very pretty, and I trained themto run after a little ball of paper and bring it back to me when I threwit into the corner of the room. In time they would follow the ball up tothe top of the bookcase, or fish for it behind boxes or in the bottom ofchina vases with their dainty little paws. As they grew up they came todisdain those frivolous amusements, and assumed the philosophical andmeditative quiet which is the true temperament of the cat. 

"To the eyes of the careless and indifferent observer, three black catsare just three black cats, but those who are really acquainted withanimals know that their physiognomy is as various as that of the humanrace. I was perfectly well able to distinguish between these littlefaces, as black as Harlequin's mask, and lighted up by disks of emeraldwith golden gleams. Enjolras, who was much the handsomest of the three, was remarkable for his broad, leonine head and full whiskers, strongshoulders, and a superb feathery tail. There was something theatricaland pretentious in his air, like the posing of a popular actor. Hismovements were slow, undulatory, and majestic: so circumspect was heabout where he set his feet down that he always seemed to be walkingamong glass and china. His disposition was by no means stoical, and hewas much too fond of food to have been approved of by his namesake. Thetemperate and austere Enjolras would certainly have said to him, as theangel said to Swedenborg, 'You eat too much. ' I encouraged hisgastronomical tastes, and Enjolras attained a very unusual size andweight. 

"Gavroche was a remarkably knowing cat, and looked it. He waswonderfully active, and his twists, twirls, and tumbles were very comic. He was of a Bohemian temperament, and fond of low company. Thus he wouldoccasionally compromise the dignity of his descent from the illustriousDon-Pierrot-de-Navarre, grandee of Spain of the first class, and theMarquesa Dona Seraphita, of aristocratic and disdainful bearing. Hewould sometimes return from his expeditions to the street, accompaniedby gaunt, starved companions, whom he had picked up in his wanderings, and he would stand complacently by while they bolted the contents of hisplate of food in a violent hurry and in dread of dispersion by abroomstick or a shower of water. I was sometimes tempted to say toGavroche, 'A nice lot of friends you pick up, ' but I refrained, for, after all, it was an amiable weakness: he might have eaten his dinnerall by himself. 

"The interesting Eponine was more slender and graceful than herbrothers, and she was an extraordinarily sensitive, nervous, andelectric animal. She was passionately attached to me, and she would dothe honors of my hermitage with perfect grace and propriety. When thebell rang, she hastened to the door, received the visitors, conductedthem to the salon, made them take seats, talked to them--yes, talked, with little coos, murmurs, and cries quite unlike the language whichcats use among themselves, and which bordered on the articulate speechof man. What did she say? She said quite plainly: 'Don't be impatient:look at the pictures, or talk with me, if I amuse you. My master iscoming down. ' On my appearing she would retire discreetly to anarm-chair or the corner of the piano, and listen to the conversationwithout interrupting it, like a well-bred animal accustomed to goodsociety. 

"Eponine's intelligence, fine disposition, and sociability led to herbeing elevated by common consent to the dignity of a person, for reason, superior instinct, plainly governed her conduct. That dignity conferredon her the right to eat at table like a person, and not in a corner onthe floor, from a saucer, like an animal. Eponine had a chair by my sideat breakfast and dinner, but in consideration of her size she wasprivileged to place her fore paws on the table. Her place was laid, without a knife and fork, indeed, but with a glass, and she wentregularly through dinner, from soup to dessert, awaiting her turn to behelped, and behaving with a quiet propriety which most children mightimitate with advantage. At the first stroke of the bell she wouldappear, and when I came into the dining room she would be at her post, upright in her chair, her fore paws on the edge of the tablecloth, andshe would present her smooth forehead to be kissed, like a well-bredlittle girl who was affectionately polite to relatives and old people. When we had friends to dine with us, Eponine always knew that companywas expected. She would look at her place, and if a knife, fork, andspoon lay near her plate she would immediately turn away and seatherself on the piano-stool, her invariable refuge. Let those who denythe possession of reason to animals explain, if they can, this littlefact, apparently so simple, but which contains a world of induction. From the presence near her plate of those implements which only man canuse, the observant and judicious cat concluded that she ought on thisoccasion to give way to a guest, and she hastened to do so. She wasnever mistaken: only, when the visitor was a person whom she knew andliked, she would jump on his knee and coax him for a bit off his plateby her graceful caresses. She survived her brothers, and was my dearcompanion for several years.... Such is the chronicle of the BlackDynasty. "

Although cats have no place in the Bible, neither can their enemies whosing the praise of the dog, find much advantage there: for that mostexcellent animal is referred to in anything but a complimentaryfashion--"For without are dogs and sorcerers. "

The great prophet of Allah, however, knew a good cat when he saw it. "Muezza" even contributed her small share to the development of theMahometan system: for did she not sit curled up in her master's sleeve, and by her soft purring soothe and deepen his meditations? And did shenot keep him dreaming so long that she finally became exhausted herself, and fell asleep in his flowing sleeve; whereupon did not Mahomet, ratherthan disturb her, and feeling that he must be about his Allah'sbusiness, cut off his sleeve rather than disturb the much loved Muezza?The nurses of Cairo tell this story to their young charges to this day. 

Cardinal Richelieu had many a kitten, too; and morose and ill-temperedas he was, found in them much amusement. His love for them, however, wasnot that unselfish love which led Mahomet to cut off his sleeve; butsimply a selfish desire for passing amusement. He cared nothing for thatmost interesting process, the development of a kitten into a cat, andthe study of its individuality which is known only to the real lover ofcats. For it is recorded of him that as soon as his pets were threemonths old he sent them away, evidently not caring where, and procurednew ones. 

M. Champfleury, however, thinks it possible that there may not be anyreal foundation for this story about Richelieu. He refers to the factthat Moncrif says not a word about the celebrated cardinal's passion forthose creatures; but he does say, "Everybody knows that one of thegreatest ministers France ever possessed, M. Colbert, always had anumber of kittens playing about that same cabinet in which so manyinstitutions, both honorable and useful to the nation, had theirorigin. " Can it be that Richelieu has been given credit for Colbert'svirtues?

In various parts of Chateaubriand's "Memoires" may be found eulogiums onthe cat. So well known was his fondness for them, that even when hisother feelings and interests faded with age and decay, his affectionsfor cats remained strong to the end. This love became well known to allhis compeers, and once on an embassy to Rome the Pope gave him a cat. Hewas called "Micetto. " According to Chateaubriand's biographer, M. DeMarcellus, "Pope Leo XII's cat could not fail to reappear in thedescription of that domestic hearth where I have so often seen himbasking. In fact, Chateaubriand has immortalized his favorite in thesketch which begins, 'My companion is a big cat, of a greyish red. '"This ecclesiastical pet was always dignified and imposing in manners, ever conscious that he had been the gift of a sovereign pontiff, and hada tremendous weight of reputation to maintain. He used to stroke histail when he desired Madame Recamier to know that he was tired. 

"I love in the cat, " said Chateaubriand to M. De Marcellus, "thatindependent and almost ungrateful temper which prevents it fromattaching itself to any one: the indifference with which it passes fromthe salon to the house-top. When you caress it, it stretches itself outand arches its back, indeed: but that is caused by physical pleasure, not, as in the case of the dog, by a silly satisfaction in loving andbeing faithful to a master who returns thanks in kicks. The cat livesalone, has no need of society, does not obey except when it likes, andpretends to sleep that it may see the more clearly, and scratcheseverything that it can scratch. Buffon has belied the cat: I am laboringat its rehabilitation, and hope to make of it a tolerably good sort ofanimal, as times go. "

Cardinal Wolsey, Lord High Chancellor of England, was another cat-lover, and his superb cat sat in a cushioned arm-chair by his side in thezenith of his pride and power, the only one in that select circle whowas not obliged to don a wig and robe while acting in a judicialcapacity. Then there was Bouhaki, the proud Theban cat that used to weargold earrings as he sat at the feet of King Hana, his owner, perhaps, but not his master, and whose reproduction in the tomb of Hana in theNecropolis at Thebes, between his master's feet in a statue, is one ofthe most ancient reproductions of a cat. And Sainte-Beuve, whose catused to roam at will over his desk and sit or lie on the preciousmanuscripts no other person was allowed to touch; it is flattering toknow that the great Frenchman and I have one habit in common; and MissRepplier owns to it too. "But Sainte-Beuve, " says she, "probably hadsufficient space reserved for his own comfort and convenience. I havenot; and Agrippina's beautifully ringed tail flapping across my copydistracts my attention and imperils the neatness of my penmanship. " Andeven as I write these pages, does the Pretty Lady's daughter Jane lie onmy copy and gaze lovingly at me as I work. 

Julian Hawthorne is another writer whose cat is an accompaniment of hisworking hours. In this connection we must not forget M. BrasseurWirtgen, a student of natural history who writes of his cat: "My habitof reading, " he says, "which divided us from each other in ourrespective thoughts, prejudiced my cat very strongly against my books. Sometimes her little head would project its profile on the page which Iwas perusing, as though she were trying to discover what it was thatthus absorbed me: doubtless, she did not understand why I should lookfor my happiness beyond the presence of a devoted heart. Her solicitudewas no less manifest when she brought me rats or mice. She acted in thiscase exactly as if I had been her son: dragging enormous rats, still inthe throes of death, to my feet: and she was evidently guided by logicin offering me a prey commensurate with my size, for she never presentedany such large game to her kittens. Her affectionate attentioninvariably caused her a severe disappointment. Having laid the productof her hunting expedition at my feet, she would appear to be greatlyhurt by my indifference to such delicious fare. "

That Tasso had a cat we know because he wrote a sonnet to her. Alfred deMusset's cats are apostrophized in his verses. Dr. Johnson's Hodge helda soft place for many years in the gruff old scholar's breast. And hasnot every one heard how the famous Dr. Johnson fetched oysters for hisbeloved Hodge, lest the servants should object to the trouble, and venttheir displeasure on his favorite?

Nor can one forget Sir Isaac Newton and his cats: for is it not allegedthat the great man had two holes cut in his barn door, one for themother, and a smaller one for the kitten?

Byron was fond of cats: in his establishment at Ravenna he had five ofthem. Daniel Maclise's famous portrait of Harriet Martineau representsthat estimable woman sitting in front of a fireplace and turning herface to receive the caress of her pet cat crawling to a resting-placeupon her mistress's shoulder. 

Although La Fontaine in his fables shows such a delicate appreciation oftheir character and ways, it is doubtful whether he honestly loved cats. But his friend and patron, the Duchess of Bouillon, was so devoted tothem that she requested the poet to make her a copy with his own hand ofall his fables in which pussy appears. The exercise-book in which theywere written was discovered a few years ago among the Bouillon papers. 

Baudelaire, it is said, could never pass a cat in the street withoutstopping to stroke and fondle it. "Many a time, " said Champfleury, "whenhe and I have been walking together, have we stopped to look at a catcurled luxuriously in a pile of fresh white linen, revelling in thecleanliness of the newly ironed fabrics. Into what fits of contemplationhave we fallen before such windows, while the coquettish laundressesstruck attitudes at the ironing boards, under the mistaken impressionthat we were admiring them. " It was also related of Baudelaire that, "going for the first time to a house, he is restless and uneasy until hehas seen the household cat. But when he sees it, he takes it up, kissesand strokes it, and is so completely absorbed in it, that he makes noanswer to what is said to him. "

Professor Huxley's notorious fondness for cats was a fad which he sharedwith Paul de Koch, the novelist, who, at one time, kept as many asthirty cats in his house. Many descriptions of them are to be foundscattered through his novels. His chief favorite, Fromentin, livedeleven years with him. 

Pierre Loti has written a charming and most touching history of two ofhis cats--Moumette Blanche and Moumette Chinoise--which all truecat-lovers should make a point of reading. 

Algernon Swinburne, the poet, is devoted to cats. His favorite is namedAtossa. Robert Southey was an ardent lover of cats. Most people haveread his letter to his friend Bedford, announcing the death of one. "Alas, Grosvenor, " he wrote, "this day poor Rumpel was found dead, afteras long and happy a life as cat could wish for, if cats form wishes onthat subject. His full titles were: The Most Noble, the ArchdukeRumpelstiltzchen, Marcus Macbum, Earl Tomlefnagne, Baron Raticide, Waowhler and Scratch. There should be a court-mourning in Catland, andif the Dragon (your pet cat) wear a black ribbon round his neck, or aband of crape _a la militaire_ round one of his fore paws it willbe but a becoming mark of respect. " Then the poet-laureate adds, "Ibelieve we are each and all, servants included, more sorry for his loss, or, rather, more affected by it, than any of us would like to confess. "

Josh Billings called his favorite cat William, because he considered noshorter name fitted to the dignity of his character. "Poor old man, " heremarked one day, to a friend, "he has fits now, so I call himFitz-William. "

CHAPTER VI

CONCERNING CATS IN ENGLAND

If the growing fancy for cats in this country is benefiting the felinerace as a whole, they have to thank the English people for it. Forcertain cats in England are held at a value that seems preposterous tounsophisticated Americans. At one cat and bird show, held at the CrystalPalace, near London, some of the cats were valued at thirty-five hundredpounds sterling ($17, 500)--as much as the price of a first-classrace-horse. 

For more than a quarter of a century National Cat Shows have been heldat Crystal Palace and the Westminster Aquarium, which have given greatstimulus to the breeding of fine cats, and "catteries" where high-pricedcats and kittens are raised are common throughout the country. 

England was the first, too, to care for lost and deserted cats and dogs. At Battersea there is a Temporary Home for both these unfortunates, where between twenty and twenty-five thousand dogs and cats aresheltered and fed. The objects of this home, which is supported entirelyby voluntary subscriptions, are to restore lost pets to their owners, tofind suitable homes for unclaimed cats and dogs, and to painlesslydestroy useless and diseased ones. There is a commodious cat's housewhere pets may be boarded during their owner's absence; and a separatehouse where lost and deserted felines are sheltered, fed, and kindlytended. 

Since long before Whittington became Lord Mayor of London, indeed, catshave been popular in England: for did not the law protect them? As tothe truth of the story of Whittington's cat, there has been much earnestdiscussion. Although Whittington lived from about 1360 to 1425, thestory seems to have been pretty generally accepted for three hundredyears after his death. A portrait still exists of him, with one handholding a cat, and when his old house was remodelled in recent times, acarved stone was found in it showing a boy with a cat in his arms. Several similar tales have been found, it is argued, in which the heroesin different countries have started to make a fortune by selling a cat. But as rats and mice were extremely common then, and it has been shownthat a single pair of rats will in three years multiply into over sixhundred thousand, which will eat as much as sixty-four thousand men, whyshouldn't a cat be deemed a luxury even for a king's palace? Theargument that the cat of Whittington was a "cat, " or boat used forcarrying coal, is disproved by the fact that no account of such vesselsin Whittington's time can be found, and also that the trade in coal didnot begin in Europe for some time afterward. And there really seemsnothing improbable in the story that at a time when a kitten big enoughto kill mice brought fourpence in England, such an animal, taken to arat-infested, catless country, might not be sold for a sum large enoughto start an enterprising youth in trade. Surely, the beginnings of someof our own railroad kings and financiers may as well look doubtful tofuture generations. 

It is a pretty story--that of Whittington; how he rose from being a merescullion at fourteen, to being "thrice Lord Mayor of London. " Accordingto what are claimed to be authentic documents, the story is somethingmore than a nursery tale, and runs thus: Poor Dick Whittington was bornat Shropshire, of such very poor parents that the boy, being of anambitious nature, left home at fourteen, and walked to London, where hewas taken into the hospital of St. John at Clerkenwell, in a menialcapacity. The prior, noticing his good behavior and diligent conduct, took a fancy to him, and obtained him a position in a Mr. Fitzwarren'shousehold on Tower Hill. For some time at this place his prospects didnot improve; he was nothing but a scullion, ridiculed and disliked bythe cook and other servants. Add to this the fact that an incredibleswarm of mice and rats infested the miserable room in which he slept, and it would seem that he was indeed a "poor Richard. " One fortunateday, however, he conceived the idea of buying a cat, and as good luckwould have it, he was enabled within a few days to earn a penny or twoby blacking the boots of a guest at the house. That day he met a womanwith a cat for sale, and after some dickering (for she asked more moneyfor it than the boy possessed in the world), Dick Whittington carriedhome his cat and put it in a cupboard or closet opening from his room. That night when he retired he let the cat out of the cupboard, and sheevidently had "no end of fun"; for, according to these authenticaccounts, "she destroyed all the vermin which ventured to make theirappearance. " For some time after that she passed her days in thecupboard (in hiding from the cook) and her nights in catching mice. 

And then came the change. Mr. Fitzwarren was fitting out a vessel forAlgiers, and kindly offered all his servants a chance to send somethingto barter with the natives. Poor Dick had nothing but his cat, but thecommercial instinct was even then strong within him, and with anenterprise worthy of the early efforts of any of our self-made men, hedecided to send that, and accordingly placed it, "while the tears runplentifully down his cheeks, " in the hands of the master of the vessel. She must have been a most exemplary cat, for by the time they hadreached Algiers, the captain was so fond of her that he allowed no oneto handle her but himself. Not even he, however, expected to turn herinto money; but the opportunity soon came. 

At a state banquet, given by the Dey, the captain and his officers wereastonished to notice that rats and mice ran freely in and out, stealinghalf the choice food, which was spread on the carpet; and this was acommon, every-day occurrence. The captain saw his, or Whittington's, opportunity, and stated that he knew a certain remedy for this state ofaffairs; whereupon he was invited to dinner next day, to which hecarried the cat, and the natural consequence ensued. This sudden andswift extermination of the pests drove the Dey and his court halffrantic with delight; and the captain, who must have been the originalprogenitor of the Yankee race, drove a sharp bargain by assuming to beunwilling to part with the cat, so that the Dey finally "sent on boardhis ship the choicest commodities, consisting of gold, jewels, andsilks. "

Meanwhile, things had gone from bad to worse with the youth, destined tobecome not only Lord Mayor of London, but the envy and admiration offuture generations of youths; and he made up his mind to run away fromhis place. This he did, but while he was on his way to more ruralscenes, he sat down on a stone at the foot of Highgate Hill (a stonethat still remains marked as "Whittington's Stone") and paused toreflect on his prospects. His thoughts turned back to the home he hadleft, where he had at least plenty to eat, and, although the "authenticreports" use a great many words to tell us so, the boy was homesick. Just then the sound of Bow Bells reached him, and to his youthful fancyseemed to call him back:--

 "Return, return, Whittington; Thrice Lord Mayor of London. "

Thus the old tale hath it. At any rate, the boy gave up the idea offlight and went back to Mr. Fitzwarren's house. The second night after, his master sent for him in the midst of one of the cook's tirades, andgoing to the "parlour" he was apprised of his sudden wealth; because, added to the rest of his good luck, that captain happened to be anhonest man. And then he went into trade and married the daughter of Mr. Fitzwarren and became Lord Mayor of London, and lived even happier everafter than they do in most fairy tales. And everybody, even the cook, admired and loved him after he had money and position, as has been knownto happen outside of fairy tales. 

Whether or not cats in England owe anything of their position to-day tothe Whittington story, it is certain that they have more reallyappreciating friends there than in any other country. The older we growin the refinements of civilization, the more we value the finely bredcat. In England it has long been the custom to register the pedigree ofcats as carefully as dog-fanciers in this country do with their fancypets. Some account of the Cat Club Stud Book and Register will be foundin the next chapter. Queen Victoria, and the Princess of Wales, andindeed many members of the nobility are cat-lovers, and doubtless thisfact influences the general sentiment in England. 

Among the most devoted of Pussy's English admirers is the Hon. Mrs. McLaren Morrison, who is the happy possessor of some of the most perfectdogs and cats that have graced the bench. She lives at Kepwick Park, inher stately home in Yorkshire--a lovely spot, commanding a delightfulview of picturesque Westmoreland on one side and on the other threesurrounded and sheltered by hills and moors. Some of her pets go withher, however, to her flat in Queen Anne's Mansions, and even to herresidence in Calcutta. It is at Kepwick Park that Mrs. McLaren Morrisonhas her celebrated "catteries. " Here there are magnificent blue, blackand silver and red Persians; snowy white, blue-eyed beauties; grandlymarked English tabbies; handsome blue Russians, with their gleamingyellow-topaz eyes; some Chinese cats, with their long, edge-shaped heads, bright golden eyes, and shiny, short-haired black fur; and a pair ofJapanese pussies, pure white and absolutely without tails. One of thehandsomest specimens of the feline race ever seen is her blue Persian, Champion Monarch, who, as a kitten in 1893, won the gold medal at theCrystal Palace given for the best pair of kittens in the show, and thenext year the Beresford Challenge Cup at Cruft's Show, for the bestlong-haired cat, besides taking many other honors. Among other well-knownprize winners are the champions Snowball and Forget-me-not, both purewhite, with lovely turquoise-blue eyes. Of Champion Nizam (now dead) thatwell-known English authority on cats, Mr. A. A. Clark, said his was thegrandest head of any cat he had ever seen. Nizam was a perfect specimenof that rare and delicate breed of cats, a pure chinchilla. The numberlesskittens sporting all day long are worthy of the art of Madame HenrietteRonner, and one could linger for hours in these delightful and mostcomfortable catteries watching their gambols. The gentle mistress of thisfair and most interesting domain, the Hon. Mrs. McLaren Morrison herself, is one of the most attractive and fascinating women of the day--one whoadds to great personal beauty all the charm of mental culture and muchtravel. She has made Kepwick Park a veritable House Beautiful with therare curios and art treasures collected with her perfect taste in themany lands she has visited, and it is as interesting and enjoyable to avirtuoso as it is to an animal lover. Mrs. McLaren Morrison exhibits atall the cat shows, often entering as many as twenty-five cats. OtherEnglish ladies who exhibit largely are Mrs. Herring, of Lestock House, and Miss Cockburn Dickinson, of Surrey. Mrs. Herring's Champion Jimmyis very well known as a first prize-winner in many shows. He is ashort-haired, exquisitely marked silver tabby valued at two thousandpounds ($10, 000). 

Another feline celebrity also well known to frequenters of English catshows, is Madame L. Portier's magnificent and colossal Blue Boy, whosefirst appearance into this world was made on the day sacred to St. Patrick, 1895. He has a fine pedigree, and was raised by Madame Portierherself. Blue Boy commenced his career as a show cat, or rather kitten, at three months old, when he was awarded a first prize, and when thejudge told his mistress that if he fulfilled his early promise he wouldmake a grand cat. This he has done, and is now one of the finestspecimens of his kind in England. He weighs over seventeen pounds, andalways has affixed to his cage on the show-bench this request, "Pleasedo not lift this cat by the neck; he is too heavy. " He has long darkblue fur, with a ruff of a lighter shade and brilliant topaz eyes. Already Blue Boy has taken many prizes. He is a gelded cat and one ofthe fortunate cats who have "Not for Sale" after their names in the showcatalogues. 

To Mrs. C. Hill's beautiful long-haired Patrick Blue fell the honor, atthe Crystal Palace Show in 1896, of a signed and framed photograph ofthe Prince of Wales, presented by his Royal Highness for the bestlong-haired cat in the show, irrespective of sex or nationality. Besidesthe prize given by the Prince, Patrick Blue was the proud winner of theBeresford Challenge Cup for the best blue long-haired cat, and the IndiaSilver Bowl for the best Persian. He also was born on St. Patrick's Day, hence his name. He was bred by Mrs. Blair Maconochie, his father, BlueRuin I, being a celebrated gold medallist. His mother, Sylvia, whobelongs to Mrs. Maconochie, has never been shown, her strong point beingher lovely color, which is most happily reproduced in her perfect son. Patrick Blue has all the many charms of a petted cat, and wasundoubtedly one of the prominent attractions of the first ChampionshipShow of the National Cat Club in 1896. 

Silver Lambkin is another very famous English cat, owned by MissGresham, of Surrey. Princess Ranee, owned by Miss Freeland, ofMottisfont, near Romney; Champion Southsea Hector, owned by MissSangster, at Southsea; champions Prince Victor and Shelly, of Kingswood(both of whom have taken no end of prizes), are other famous Englishcats. 

Topso, a magnificent silver tabby male, belonging to Miss AndersonLeake, of Dingley Hill, was at one time the best long-haired silvertabby in England, and took the prize on that account in 1887; his sons, daughters, grandsons, and granddaughters, have all taken prizes atCrystal Palace in the silver tabby classes, since that time. 

Lady Marcus Beresford has for the last fifteen years made quite abusiness of the breeding and rearing of cats. At Bishopsgate, nearEgham, she has what is without doubt the finest cattery. "I haveapplications from all parts of the world for my cats and kittens, " saidLady Marcus, in a talk about her hobby, "and I may tell you that it islargely because of this that I founded the Cat Club, which has for itsobject the general welfare of the cat and the improvement of the breed. My catteries were established in 1890, and at one time I had as many as150 cats and kittens. Some of my pets live in a pretty cottage coveredwith creepers, which might well be called Cat Cottage. No expense hasbeen spared in the fittings of the rooms, and every provision is madefor warmth and ventilation. One room is set apart for the girl who takesentire charge of and feeds the pussies. She has a boy who works with herand performs the rougher tasks. There is a small kitchen for cooking themeals for the cats, and this is fitted with every requisite. On thewalls are racks to hold the white enamelled bowls and plates used forthe food. There is a medicine chest, which contains everything that isneedful for prompt and efficacious treatment in case pussy becomes sick. On the wall are a list of the names and a full description of all theinmates of the cattery, and a set of rules to be observed by both thecats and their attendants. These rules are not ignored, and it is atribute to the intelligence of the cat to see how carefully pussy canbecome amenable to discipline, if once given to understand of what thatdiscipline consists. 

"Then there is a garden cattery. I think this is the prettiest of all. It is covered with roses and ivy. In this there are three rooms, provided with shelves and all other conveniences which can add to thecats' comfort and amusement. The residences of the male cats are mostcomplete, for I have given them every attention possible. Each male cathas his separate sleeping apartments, closed with wire and with a 'run'attached. Close at hand is a large, square grass 'run, ' and in this eachgentleman takes his daily but solitary exercise. One of the stringentrules of the cattery is that no two males shall ever be left together, and I know that with my cats if this rule were not observed, both inletter and precept, it would be a case of 'when Greek meets Greek. '

"I vary the food for my cats as much as possible. One day we will havemost appetizing bowls of fish and rice. At the proper time you can seethese standing in the cat kitchen ready to be distributed. Another daythese bowls will be filled with minced meat. In the very hot weather agood deal of vegetable matter is mixed with the food. Swiss milk isgiven, so there is no fear of its turning sour. For some time I havekept a goat on the premises, the milk from which is given to thedelicate or younger kittens. 

"I have started many of my poorer friends in cat breeding, and they haveproved conclusively how easily an addition to their income can be made, not only by breeding good Persian kittens and selling them, but byexhibiting them at the various shows and taking prizes. But of coursethere is a fashion in cats, as in everything else. When I startedbreeding blue Persians about fifteen years ago they were very scarce, and I could easily get twenty-five dollars apiece for my kittens. Nowthis variety is less sought after, and self-silvers, commonly calledchinchillas, are in demand. "

CHAPTER VII

CONCERNING CAT CLUBS AND CAT SHOWS

The annual cat shows in England, which have been held successively formore than a quarter of a century, led to the establishment in 1887 of aNational Cat Club, which has steadily grown in membership and interest, and by the establishment of the National Stud Book and Register hasgreatly raised the standard of felines in the mother country. It hasmany well-known people as members, life members, or associates; and fromtime to time people distinguished in the cat world have been added ashonorary members. 

The officers of the National Cat Club of England, since itsreconstruction in March, 1898, are as follows:--

_Presidents. _--Her Grace the Duchess of Bedford; Lord MarcusBeresford. 

_Vice-presidents. _--Lily, Duchess of Marlborough, now Lady Wm. Beresford; the Countess of Warwick; Lady Granville Gordon; Hon. Mrs. McL. Morrison; Madame Ronner; Mr. Isaac Woodiwiss; the Countess ofSefton; Lady Hothfield; the Hon. Mrs. Brett; Mr. Sam Woodiwiss; Mr. H. W. Bullock. 

_President of Committee. _--Mr. Louis Wain. 

_Committee_. --Lady Marcus Beresford; Mrs. Balding; Mr. SidneyWoodiwiss; Mr. Hawkins; Mrs. Blair Maconochie; Mrs. Vallance; Mr. Brackett; Mr. F. Gresham. 

_Hon. Secretary and Hon. Treasurer_. --Mrs. Stennard Robinson. 

This club has a seal and a motto: "Beauty lives by kindness. " Itpublishes a stud book in which are registered pedigrees and championshipwins which are eligible for it. Only wins obtained from shows held underN. C. C. Rules are recorded free of charge. The fee for ordinaryregistration is one shilling per cat, and the stud book is publishedannually. There are over two thousand cats now entered in this NationalCat Club Stud Book, the form of entry being as follows (L. F. Meanslong-haired female; C. P. , Crystal Palace):--

 * * * * *

No. 1593, Mimidatzi, L. F. Silver Tabby. 

Miss Anna F. Gardner, Hamswell House, near Bath, shown as Mimi. 

Bred by Miss How, Bridgeyate, near Bristol. Born April, 1893. Alive. 

Sire, Blue Boy the Great of Islington, 1090 (Mrs H. B. Thompson). 

Dam, Boots of Bridgeyate, 1225 (Miss How). 

Prizes won--1st Bilton, 2nd, C. P. 1893, Kitten Class. 

 * * * * *

No. 1225, Boots of Bridgeyate. L. F. Silver Tabby. 

Miss E. How, Bridgeyate House, Warmly, Bristol. 

Former owner, Mrs. Foote, 43 Palace Gardens, Kensington. 

Born March, 1892. Alive. 

Some of the cats entered have records of prizes covering nearly half apage of the book. The advantage of such a book to cat owners can bereadily seen. A cat once entered never changes its number, no matter howmany owners he may have, and his name cannot be changed after December31 of the year in which he is registered. 

The more important rules of the English National Cat Club are given incondensed form as follows:--

The name is "The National Cat Club. "

_Objects_: To promote honesty in the breeding of cats, so as toinsure purity in each distinct breed or variety; to determine theclassification required, and to insure the adoption of suchclassification by breeders, exhibitors, judges, and the committees ofall cat shows; to encourage showing and breeding by giving championshipand other prizes, and otherwise doing all in its power to protect andadvance the interest of cats and their owners. The National Cat Clubshall frame a separate set of rules for cat shows to be called "NationalCat Club Rules, " and the committees of those cat shows to which therules are given, shall be called upon to sign a guarantee to theNational Cat Club binding them to provide good penning and effectualsanitation, also to the punctual payment of prize money and to theproper adjudication of prizes. 

_Stud Book_: The National Cat Club shall keep a stud book. 

_Neuter Classes_. --For gelded cats. 

_Kitten Classes_. --Single entries over three and under eight months. 

_Kitten Brace_. --Kittens of any age. 

_Brace_. --For two cats of any age. 

_Team_. --For three or more cats, any age. 

In Paris, although cats have not been commonly appreciated as inEngland, there is an increasing interest in them, and cat shows are nowa regular feature of the Jardin d'Acclimation. This suggests the subjectof the cat's social position in France. Since the Revolution the animalhas conquered in this country "_toutes les liberties_, " exceptingthat of wearing an entire tail, for in many districts it is the fashionto cut the caudal appendage short. 

In Paris cats are much cherished wherever they can be without causingtoo much unpleasantness with the landlord. The system of living in flatsis not favorable to cat culture, for the animal, not having accesseither to the tiles above or to the gutter below, is apt to pine forfresh air, and the society of its congeners. Probably in no other citydo these creatures lie in shop windows and on counters with such anarrogant air of proprietorship. In restaurants, a very large and fat catis kept as an advertisement of the good feeding to be obtained on thepremises. There is invariably a cat in a _charbonnier's_ shop, andthe animal is generally one that was originally white, but long ago cameto the conclusion that all attempts to keep itself clean were hopeless. Its only consolation is that it is never blacker than its master. It iswell known that the Persians and Angoras are much esteemed in Paris andare, to some extent, bred for sale. In the provinces, French cats areusually low-bred animals, with plebeian heads and tails, the stringlikeappearance of the latter not being improved by cropping. Although notgenerally esteemed as an article of food in France, there are still manypeople scattered throughout the country who maintain that a _civet dechat_ is as good, or better, than a _civet de lievre_. 

M. François Coppée's fondness for cats as pets is so well known thatthere was great fitness in placing his name first upon the jury ofawards at the 1896 cat show in Paris. Such other well-known men as ÉmileZola, André Theuriet, and Catulle Mendes, also figured on the list. There is now an annual "Exposition Feline Internationale. "

In this country the first cat show of general interest was held atMadison Square Garden, New York, in May, 1895. Some years before, therehad been a cat show under the auspices of private parties in Boston, andseveral minor shows had been held at Newburgh, N. Y. , and other places. But the New York shows were the first to attract general attention. Onehundred and seventy-six cats were exhibited by one hundred andtwenty-five owners, besides several ocelots, wild cats, and civets. Forsome reason the show at Madison Square Garden in March, 1896, cataloguedonly one hundred and thirty-two cats and eighty-two owners. Since thattime there have been no large cat shows in New York. 

There have been several cat shows in Boston since 1896, but these are sofar only adjuncts to poultry and pigeon shows. Great interest has beenmanifest in them, however, and the entries have each year run above ahundred. Some magnificent cats are exhibited, although as a rule theanimals shown are somewhat small, many kittens being placed there forsale by breeders. 

Several attempts to start successful cat clubs in this country have beenmade. At the close of the New York show in 1896, an American Cat Clubwas organized for the purpose "of investigating, ascertaining, andkeeping a record of the pedigrees of cats, and of instituting, maintaining, controlling, and publishing a stud book, or book ofregistry of such kind of domestic animals in the United States ofAmerica and Canada, and of promoting and holding exhibitions of suchanimals, and generally for the purpose of improving the breed thereof, and educating the public in its knowledge of the various breeds andvarieties of cats. "

The officers were as follows:--

_President_. --Rush S. Huidekoper, 154 E. 57th St. , New York City. 

_Vice-presidents_. --W. D. Mann, 208 Fifth Ave. , New York City; Mrs. E. N. Barker, Newburgh, N. Y. 

_Secretary-treasurer_. --James T. Hyde, 16 E. 23d St. , New York City. 

_Executive Committee_. --T. Farrar Rackham, E. Orange, N. J. ; MissEdith Newbold, Southampton, L. I. ; Mrs. Harriet C. Clarke, 154 W. 82dSt. , New York City; Charles R. Pratt, St. James Hotel, New York City;Joseph W. Stray, 229 Division St. , Brooklyn, N. Y. 

More successful than this club, however, is the Beresford Cat Clubformed in Chicago in the winter of 1899. The president is Mrs. ClintonLocke, who is a member of the English cat clubs, and whose kennel inChicago contains some of the finest cats in America. The Beresford CatClub has the sanction of John G. Shortall, of the American HumaneSociety, and on its honorary list are Miss Agnes Repplier, MadameRonner, Lady Marcus Beresford, Miss Helen Winslow, and Mr. Louis Wain. 

At their cat shows, which are held annually, prizes are offered for allclasses of cats, from the common feline of the back alley up to thearistocratic resident of milady's boudoir. 

The Beresford Club Cat shows are the most successful of any yet given inAmerica. One hundred and seventy-eight prizes were awarded in the showof January, 1900, and some magnificent cats were shown. It is said bythose who are in a position to know that there are no better cats shownin England now than can be seen at the Beresford Show in Chicago. Theexhibits cover short and long haired cats of all colors, sizes, andages, with Siamese cats, Manx cats, and Russian cats. At the show inJanuary, 1900, Mrs. Clinton Locke exhibited fourteen cats of one color, and Mrs. Josiah Cratty five white cats. This club numbers one hundredand seventy members and has a social position and consequent strengthsecond to none in America. It is a fine, honorable club, which has forits objects the protection of the Humane Society and the caring for allcats reported as homeless or in distress. It aims also to establishstraightforward and honest dealings among the catteries and to do awaywith the humbuggery which prevails in some quarters about the sales andvaluation of high-bred cats. This club cannot fail to be of greatbenefit to such as want to carry on an honest industry by the raisingand sale of fine cats. It will also improve the breeding of cats in thiscountry, and thereby raise the standard and promote a more generalintelligence among the people with regard to cats. Some of the bestpeople in the United States belong to the Beresford Club, the membershipof which is by no means confined to Chicago; on the contrary, the clubis a national one and the officers and board of directors are:--

_President. _--Mrs. Clinton Locke. 

_1st Vice-president. _--Mrs W. Eames Colburn. 

_2d Vice-president. _--Mrs. F. A. Howe. 

_Corresponding Secretary. _--Mrs. Henry C. Clark. 

_Recording Secretary_. --Miss Lucy Claire Johnstone. 

_Treasurer_. --Mrs. Charles Hampton Lane. 

Mrs. Elwood H. Tolman. 

Mrs. J. H. Pratt. 

Mrs. Mattie Fisk Green. 

Mrs. F. A. Story. 

Miss Louise L. Fergus. 

The club is anxious to have members all over the United States, just asthe English cat clubs do. The non-resident annual fees are only onedollar, and a member has to be proposed by one and endorsed by two othermembers. The register cats for the stud book are entered at one dollareach, and it is proposed to give shows once a year. The main objects ofthe club are to improve the breeds of fancy cats in America, to awaken amore general interest in them, and to secure better treatment for theordinary common cat. The shows will be given for the benefit of theHumane Society. 

The Chicago Cat Club has done excellent work also, having established acat home, or refuge, for stray, homeless, or diseased cats, with adepartment for boarding pet cats during the absence of their owners. Itis under the personal care and direction of Dr. C. A. White, 78 E. 26thStreet. The first cat to be admitted there was one from Cleveland, Ohio, which was to be boarded for three months during the absence of its ownerin Europe and also to be treated for disease. This club was incorporatedunder the state laws of Illinois, on January 26, 1899. In connectionwith it is a children's cat club, which has for its primary object theteaching of kindness to animals by awakening in the young people anappreciative love for cats. At the show of the Chicago Cat Club, smalldogs and cavies are exhibited also, the Cavy Club and the Pet Dog Clubhaving affiliated with the Chicago Cat Club. 

The president of the Chicago Cat Club is Mrs. Leland Norton, of theDrexel Kennels, at 4011 Drexel Boulevard, Chicago. The correspondingsecretary is Mrs. Laura Daunty Pelham, 315 Interocean Building, and theother officers are: Vice-president, Miss Gertrude Estabrooks; recordingsecretary, Miss Jennie Van Allen; and treasurer, Mrs. Ella B. Shepard. Membership is only one dollar a year, and the registration fee in theChicago stud book fifty cents for each cat. 

The cat shows already held and the flourishing state of our cat clubshave proved that America has as fine, if not finer, cats than can befound in England, and that interest in finely bred cats is on theincrease in this country. The effect of the successful cat clubs and catshows must be to train intelligent judges and to raise the standard ofcats in this country. It will also tend to make the cat shows of such acharacter that kind-hearted owners need not hesitate to enter theirchoicest cats. As yet, however, the judging at cat shows is not so wellmanaged as in England. It should be a rule that the judges of catsshould not only understand their fine points, but should be in sympathywith the little pets. 

Cat dealers who have a number of cats entered for competition, shouldnot be allowed on the board of judges. In England, the cats to be judgedare taken by classes into a tent for the purpose, and the door isfastened against all but the judges; whereas over here the cats are toooften taken out of their cages in the presence of a crowd of spectatorsand judged on a table or some public place, thereby frightening thetimid ones and bringing annoyance to the owners. 

Again, there should be several judges. In England there are seven, including two or three women, and these are assigned to differentclasses: Mr. Harrison Weir, F. R. H. S. , the well-known authority on cats, and Louis Wain, the well-known cat artist, are among them. In thiscountry there are a number of women who are not dealers, but who arefully posted in the necessary qualifications for a high-bred cat. American cat shows should have at least three judges, one of whom, atleast, should be a woman. A cat should be handled gently and kept ascalm as possible during the judging. Women are naturally more gentle intheir methods, and more tenderhearted. When my pets are entered forcompetition, may some wise, kind woman have the judging of them!

In judging a cat the quality and quantity of its fur is the first thingconsidered. In a long-haired cat this includes the "lord mayor's chain, "or frill, the tail, and, most important of all, the ear-tufts. The tuftsbetween the toes and the flexibility of the tail are other importantpoints. The shape of head, eyes, and body are also carefully noted. Ashort-haired cat is judged first for color, then for eyes, head, symmetry, and ears. 

In all cats the head should show breadth between the eyes. The eyesshould be round and open. White cats to be really valuable should haveblue eyes (without deafness); black cats should have yellow eyes; othercats should have pea-green eyes, or in some cases, as in the brown, self-colored eyes. The nose should be short and tapering. The teethshould be good, and the claws flat. The lower leg should be straight, and the upper hind leg lie at closed angles. The foot should be smalland round (in the maltese, pointed). A good cat has a light frame, but adeep chest; a slim, graceful, and fine neck; medium-sized ears withrounded tips. The croup should be square and high; the tail of ashort-haired cat long and tapering, and of a long-haired cat broad andbent over at the end. 

The good results of a cat show are best told in a few words by one whohas acted as judge at an American exhibition. 

"One year, " he said, "people have to learn that there is such a thing asa cat; the next they come to the show and learn to tell the differentbreeds; another year they learn the difference between a good cat and apoor one; and the next year they become exhibitors, and tell the judgeshow to award the premiums. "

CHAPTER VIII

CONCERNING HIGH-BRED CATS IN AMERICA

One of the first American women to start a "cattery" in this country wasMrs. Clinton Locke, wife of the rector of Grace Church, Chicago. As aclergyman's wife she has done a great deal of good among the variouscharities of her city simply from the income derived from her kennels. She has been very generous in gifts of her kittens to other women whohave made the raising of fine cats a means to add to a slender income, and has sent beautiful cats all over the United States, to Mexico, andeven to Germany. Under her hospitable roof at 2825 Indiana Avenue is acat family of great distinction. First, there is The Beadle, a splendidblue male with amber eyes, whose long pedigree appears in the thirdvolume of the N. C. C. S. B. Under the number 1872, sired by Glaucus, and his dam was Hawthorne Bounce. His pedigree is traced for manygenerations. He was bred by Mrs. Dean of Hawthornedene, Slough, England. The Beadle took first prize at the cat show held in Chicago in 1896. Healso had honorable mention at two cat shows in England when a kitten, under the name of Bumble Bee. Lord Gwynne is a noble specimen, along-haired white cat with wonderful blue eyes. He was bred fromChampion Bundle, and his mother was out of The Masher, No. 1027, winnerof many championships. His former owner was Mrs. Davies, of UpperCattesham. Mrs. Locke purchased him from A. A. Clarke, one of the bestjudges of cats in England. Lord Gwynne took a prize at the Brighton CatShow in England in 1895, as a kitten. The father of The Beadle's mate, Rosalys, was the famous "Bluebeard. "

Mrs. Locke's chinchillas are the finest ones in this country. Atossa, the mother cat, has a wonderful litter of kittens. She was bred to LordArgent, one of the three celebrated stud chinchillas in England. Shearrived in this country in July, and ten days after gave birth to herforeign kittens. One of the kittens has been sold to Mrs. Dr. Forsheimer, of Cincinnati, and another to Mrs. W. E. Colburn, of SouthChicago. The others Mrs. Locke will not part with at any price. 

Smerdis, the grand chinchilla male brought over as a future mate forAtossa, is a royal cat. He looks as though he had run away from Bengal, but, like all of Mrs. Locke's cats, he is gentle and loving. He is the sonof Lord Southampton, the lightest chinchilla stud in England (N. C. C. S. B. 1690), and his mother is Silver Spray, No. 1542. His maternal grandparentsare Silver King and Harebell, and his great-grandparents Perso andBeauty, --all registered cats. On his father's side a pedigree of threegenerations can be traced. One of her more recent importations is LordGwynne's mate, Lady Mertice, a beautiful long-haired cat with blue eyes. Other famous cats of hers have been Bettina, Nora, Doc, Vashti, Marigold, Grover, and Wendell. 

One of Mrs Locke's treasures is a _bona fide_ cat mummy, brought byMrs. Locke from Egypt. It has been verified at the Gizeh Museum to befour thousand years old. 

It is fully twenty-five years since Mrs. Locke began to turn herattention to fine cats, and when she imported her first cat to Chicagothere was only one other in the United States. That one was Mrs. EdwinBrainard's Madam, a wonderful black, imported from Spain. Her firstlong-haired cat was Wendell, named for the friend who brought him fromPersia, and his descendants are now in the Lockehaven Cattery. QueenWendella is one of the most famous cats in America to-day, and mother ofthe beautiful Lockehaven Quartette. These are all descended from thefirst Wendell. The kittens in the Lockehaven Quartette went to Mrs. S. S. Leach, Bonny Lea, New London, Ct. ; Miss Lucy Nichols, Ben Mahr Cattery, Waterbury, Ct. ; Miss Olive Watson, Warrensburg, Pa. ; and Mrs. B. M. Gladding, at Memphis, Tenn, Mrs. Locke's Lord Argent, descended fromAtossa and the famous Lord Argent, of England, is a magnificent cat, while her Smerdis is the son of the greatest chinchillas in the world. Rosalys II, now owned by Mr. C. H. Jones, of Palmyra, N. Y. , was once hercat, and was the daughter of Rosalys (owned by Miss Nichols, ofWaterbury, Ct), who was a granddaughter of the famous Bluebeard, ofEngland. These, with the beautiful brown tabby, Crystal, owned by Mr. Jones, have all been prize winners. Lucy Claire is a recent importation, who won second and third prizes in England under the name of BabyFlossie. She is the daughter of Duke of Kent and Topso, of Merevale. Herpaternal grandparents are Mrs. Herring's well-known champion, Blue Jack, and Marney. The maternal grandparents are King Harry, a prize winner atClifton and Brighton, and Fluff. 

Mrs. Locke's cats are all imported. She has sometimes purchased catsfrom Maine or elsewhere for people who did not care to pay the pricedemanded for her fine kittens, but she has never had in her own catteryany cats of American origin. Her stock, therefore, is probably thechoicest in America. She always has from twenty to twenty-five cats, andthe cat-lover who obtains one of her kittens is fortunate indeed. Abeautiful pair of blacks in Mrs. Locke's cattery have the most desirableshade of amber eyes, and are named "Blackbird" and "St. Tudno"; she hasalso a choice pair of Siamese cats called "Siam" and "Sally Ward. "

Mrs. Josiah Cratty, of Oak Park, has a cattery called the "JungfrauKatterie, " and her cats are remarkably beautiful. Her Bartimaeus andTrue Blue are magnificent white cats, sired by Mrs. Locke's Lord Gwynne. 

Miss L. C. Johnstone, of Chicago, has some of the handsomest cats in thecountry. Cherie is a wonderful blue shaded cat; Lord Humm is a splendidbrown tabby; while Beauty Belle is an exceedingly handsome white cat. Miss Johnstone takes great pains with her cats, and is rewarded byhaving them rated among the best in America. 

Some of the beautiful cats which have been sent from Chicago to homeselsewhere are Teddy Roosevelt, a magnificent white, sired by Mrs. W. E. Colburn's Paris, and belonging to Mrs. L. Kemp, of Huron, S. Dak. ;Silver Dick, a gorgeous buff and white, whose grandmother was Mrs. Colburn's Caprice, and who is owned by Mrs. Porter L. Evans, of East St. Louis; Toby, a pure white with green eyes, owned by Mrs. Elbert W. Shirk, of Indianapolis; and Amytis, a chinchilla belonging to Mrs. S. S. Leach, of New London, sired by Mrs. Locke's Smerdis, and the daughter ofRosalys II. 

Miss Cora Wallace, of East Brady, Pa. , has Lord Ruffles, son of thefirst Rosalys and The Beadle, formerly Bumble Bee. Mrs. Fisk Greene, ofChicago, now owns a beautiful cat in Bumble Bee, and another in MissMerrylegs, a blue with golden eyes, the daughter of Bumble Bee and BlackSapho. The Misses Peacock, of Topeka, have a pair of whites calledPrince Hilo and Rosebud, the latter having blue eyes. Mrs. FrederickMonroe, of Riverside, Ill. , owns a remarkable specimen of a genuineRussian cat, a perfect blue of extraordinary size. Miss ElizabethKnight, of Milwaukee, has a beautiful silver tabby, Winifred, thedaughter of Whychwood, Miss Kate Loraine Gage's celebrated silver tabby, of Brewster, N. Y. The most perfect "lavender blue" cat belongs to MissLucy E. Nichols, of Waterbury, Ct. , and is named Roscal. He hasbeautiful long fur, with a splendid ruff and tail, and is a son ofRosalys and The Beadle. 

Mrs. Leland Norton has a number of magnificent cats. It was she whoadopted Miss Frances Willard's "Tootsie, " the famous cat which made twothousand dollars for the temperance cause. Miss Nella B. Wheatley hasvery fine kennels, and raises some beautiful cats. Her Taffy is abeautiful buff and white Angora, which has been very much admired. Hercats have been sold to go to many other cities. Speaking from her ownexperience Miss Wheatley says, "Raising Angoras is one of the mostfascinating of employments, and I have found, when properly taken careof, they are among the most beautiful, strong, intelligent, and playfulof all animals. "

Mrs. W. E. Colburn is another very successful owner of cat kennels. Shehas had some of the handsomest cats in this country, among which are"Paris, " a magnificent white cat with blue eyes, and his mother, "Caprice, " who has borne a number of wonderfully fine pure white Angoraswith the most approved shade of blue eyes. Her cattery is known as the"Calumet Kennel, " and there is no better judge of cats in the countrythan Mrs. Colburn. 

So much has been said of the cats which were "mascots" on the shipsduring the Cuban War that it is hardly necessary to speak of them. Tom, the mascot of the _Maine_, and Christobal have been shown inseveral cities of the Union since the war. 

The most beautiful collection of brown tabbies is owned by Mr. C. H. Jones, of Palmyra, N. Y. , who has the "Crystal Cattery. " Crystal, the sonof Mrs. E. M. Barker's "King Humbert, " is the champion brown tabby ofAmerica, and is a magnificent creature, of excellent disposition andgreatly admired by cat fanciers everywhere. Mona Liza, his mate, andGoozie and Bubbles make up as handsome a quartet of this variety as onecould wish to see. Goozie's tail is now over twelve inches incircumference. Mr. Jones keeps about twenty fine cats in stock all thetime. 

The most highly valued cat in America is Napoleon the Great, whose ownerhas refused four thousand dollars for him. A magnificent fellow he istoo, with his bushy orange fur and lionlike head. He is ten years oldand weighs twenty-three pounds, which is a remarkable weight in a malecat, only gelded ones ordinarily running above fifteen pounds. Napoleonwas bred by a French nobleman, and was born at the ChateauFontainebleau, near Paris, in 1888. He is a pure French Angora, which isshown by his long crinkly hair--so long that it has to be frequentlyclipped to preserve the health and comfort of the beautiful creature. This clipping is what causes the uneven quality of fur which appears inhis picture. His mother was a famous cat, and his grandmother was one ofthe grandest dams of France (no pun intended). The latter lived to benineteen years old, and consequently Napoleon the Great is regarded byhis owners as a mere youth. He has taken first prizes and medalswherever he has been exhibited, and at Boston, 1897, won the silver cupoffered for the best cat in the exhibition. 

Another fine cat belonging to Mrs. Weed, is Marguerite, mother of LeNoir, a beautiful black Angora, sired by Napoleon the Great and owned byMrs. Weed. Juno is Napoleon's daughter, born in 1894, and is valued atfifteen hundred dollars. When she was seven months old her ownersrefused two hundred dollars for her. She is a tortoise-shell and whiteFrench Angora, and a remarkably beautiful creature. All these cats aregreat pets, and are allowed the freedom of the house and barns, althoughwhen they run about the grounds there is always a man in attendance. Sixor seven thousand dollars' worth of cats sporting on the lawn togetheris a rich sight, but not altogether without risk. 

Mrs. Fabius M. Clarke's "Persia, " a beautiful dark chinchilla, is one ofthe finest cats in this country. She began her career by taking specialand first prizes at Fastmay's Cat Show in England, as the best long-hairedkitten. She also took the first prize as a kitten at Lancashire, and atthe National Cat Show in New York in 1895. She was bred in England; sire, King of Uhn; dam, Brunette, of pure imported Persian stock. Mrs. Clarkebrought her home in January, 1895, and she is still worshipped as a familypet at her New York home. "Sylvio" was also brought over at the same time. He was a beautiful long-haired male silver tabby, and bred by Mrs. A. F. Gardner. Sylvio was sired by the famous Topso of Dingley (owned by MissLeake), famous as the best long-haired tabby in England. Sylvio's motherwas Mimidatzi, whose pedigree is given in the previous chapter. "Mimi's"sire was the champion Blue Boy the Great, whose mother was Boots ofBridgeyate, whose pedigree is also given in the extract from the studbook. Sylvio took a first prize at the New York Show, 1895, butunfortunately was poisoned before he was a year old. This seems thegreater pity, because he had a remarkably fine pedigree, and gave promiseof being one of the best cats America has yet seen. 

Persia is a handsome specimen of the fine blue chinchilla class. She isquiet, amiable, and shows her high breeding in her good manners andintelligence. Her tail is like a fox's brush, and her ruff gladdens theheart of every cat fancier that beholds her. She is an aristocraticlittle creature, and seems to feel that she comes of famous foreignancestry. Mrs. Clarke makes great pets of her beautiful cats, and trainsthem to do many a cunning trick. 

Another cat which has won several prizes, and took the silver bowloffered for the best cat and litter of kittens in the 1895 cat show ofNew York is Ellen Terry, a handsome orange and white, exhibited by Mrs. Fabius M. Clarke. At that show she had seven beautiful kittens, and theyall reposed in a dainty white and yellow basket with the mother, delighting the hearts of all beholders. She now belongs to Mrs. BrianBrown, of Brooklyn. She is a well-bred animal, with a pretty face andfine feathering. One of the kittens who won the silver bowl in 1895 tookthe second prize for long-haired white female in New York, in March, 1896. She is a beautiful creature, known as Princess Dinazarde, andbelongs to Mrs. James S. H. Umsted, of New York. 

Sylvia is still in Mrs. Clarke's possession, and is a beautifulcreature, dainty, refined, and very jealous of her mistress's affection. Mrs. Clarke also owns a real Manx cat, brought from the Isle of Man byCaptain McKenzie. It acts like a monkey, climbing up on mantels andthrowing down pictures and other small objects, in the regular monkeyspirit of mischief. It has many queer attributes, and hops about like arabbit. She also owns Sapho, who was bred by Ella Wheeler Wilcox fromher Madame Ref and Mr. Stevens's Ajax, an uncommonly handsome whiteAngora. 

The sire of Topso and Sylvia was Musjah, owned by Mr. Ferdinand Danton, a New York artist. He was a magnificent creature, imported from Algiersin 1894; a pure blue Persian of uncommon size and beautiful coloring. Musjah was valued at two hundred dollars, but has been stolen from Mr. Danton. Probably his present owner will not exhibit him at future catshows. 

Ajax is one of the finest white Angoras in this country. His owner, Mr. D. W. Stevens, of West-field, Mass. , has refused five hundred dollars forhim, and would not consider one thousand dollars as a fair exchange forthe majestic creature. He was born in 1893, and is valued, not only forhis fine points, but because he is a family pet, with a fine dispositionand uncommon intelligence. At the New York show in 1895, and at severalother shows, he has won first prizes. 

One of his sons bids fair to be as fine a cat as Ajax. This is Sampson, bred by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, from Madame Ref, and owned by Mrs. BrianBrown. Mr. Stevens has a number of other high-bred cats, one of whom isRaby, a reddish black female, with a red ruff. Another is Lady, who ispure white; and then there are Monkey and Midget, who are black andwhite Angoras. All of these cats are kept in a pen, half of which iswithin the barn, and the other half out of doors and enclosed by wirenetting. Ajax roams over the house at will, and the others pass some ofthe time there, but the entire collection, sometimes numberingtwenty-five, is too valuable to be given the freedom of all outdoors. Both Mr. And Mrs. Stevens are very fond of cats, and have made a studyof them in sickness and health. Some years ago, a malicious raid wasmade on the pen, and every cat poisoned with the exception of Raby, whose life was saved only by frequent and generous doses of skunk's oiland milk. 

At the first New York show, Miss Ethel Nesmith Anderson's Chico, animported Persian, took the second prize, after Ajax, in the pure white, longhaired class. The third prize was won by Snow, another importedAngora, belonging to Mr. George A. Rawson, of Newton, Mass. Snow hadalready taken a prize at Crystal Palace. He is a magnificent animal. Mr. Rawson owns a number of beautiful cats, which are the pride of hisfamily, and bring visitors from all parts of the country. Hisorange-colored, long-haired Dandy won first prizes at the Boston showsof 1896 and 1897 in the gelded class. He is beautifully marked, and hasa disposition as "childlike and bland" as the most exacting owner couldwish. Miss Puff is also owned by Mr. Rawson, and presents him withbeautiful white Angora kittens every year. The group of ten whitekittens, raised by him in 1896, gives some idea of the beauty of thesekittens: although the picture was taken with a high wind blowing intheir faces, causing one white beauty to conceal all marks ofidentification except an ear, and another to hide completely behind hisplaymates. 

Mustapha was entered by Dr. Huidekoper in the first New York show, butnot for competition. He was a magnificent brindled Persian gelded cat, six years old, who enjoyed the plaudits of the multitude just as well asthough he had taken first prize. He was very fond of his master, butvery shy with strangers when at home. He slept on the library desk, or acushion next his master's bed whenever he could be alone with thedoctor, but at other times preferred his own company or that of thecook. 

Another cat that attracted a great deal of attention was Master Pettet'sTommy, a white Persian, imported in 1889 and valued at five hundreddollars, although no money consideration could induce his owners to partwith him. He was brought from the interior of Persia, where he wascaptured in a wild state. He was kept caged for over a year, and wouldnot be tamed; but at last he became domesticated, and is now one of thedearest pets imaginable. His fur is extremely long and soft, without acolored hair. His tail is broad and carried proudly aloft, curling overtoward his back when walking. His face is full of intelligence: his earswell-tipped and feathered, and his ruff a thing of beauty and a joyforever. 

King Max, a long-haired, black male, weighing thirteen pounds at the ageof one year, and valued at one thousand dollars, took first prizes inBoston in January, 1897, '98, and '99. He is owned by Mrs. E. R. Taylor, of Medford, Mass. , and attracts constant attention during shows. His furis without a single white hair and is a finger deep; his ruff encircleshis head like a great aureole. He is not only one of the most beautifulcats I have ever seen, but one of the best-natured: as his reputationfor beauty spreads among visitors at the show, everybody wants to seehim, and he has no chance at all for naps. Generally he is broughtforward and taken from his cage a hundred times a day; but not once doeshe show the least sign of ill-temper, and even on the last day of theshow he keeps up a continual low purr of content and happiness. Perhapshe knows how handsome he is. 

Grover B. , the Mascotte, is a Philadelphia cat who took the twenty-fivedollar gold medal in 1895, at the New York show, as the heaviest whitecat exhibited. He belongs to Mr. And Mrs. W. P. Buchanan, and weighs overtwenty pounds. He is a thoroughbred, and is valued at one thousanddollars, having been brought from the Isle of Malta, and he wears aone-hundred-dollar gold collar. He is a remarkable cat, notedparticularly for his intelligence and amiability. He is very dainty inhis choice of food, and prefers to eat his dinners in his high chair atthe table. He has a fascinating habit of feeding himself with his paws. He is very talkative just before meal-times, and is versed in all thefeline arts of making one's self understood. He waits at the front doorfor his master every night, and will not leave him all the evening. Hesleeps in a bed of his own, snugly wrapped up in blankets, and he isadmired by all who know him, not more for his beauty than for hisexcellent deportment. He furnishes one more proof that a properlytrained and well-cared-for cat has a large amount of common sense andappreciation. 

Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett's tiger cat Dick attracted a great deal ofattention at the first New York show. He weighs twenty-two pounds and isthree feet long, with a girth of twenty-four inches; and he has attainedsome degree of prominence in her writings. 

A trio of cats that were a centre of attraction at that first showbelonged to Colonel Mann, of _Town Topics_. They were jet black, and rejoiced in the names of Taffy, The Laird, and Little Billee. Theytook a first prize, but two of them have since come to an untimely end. Colonel Mann is a devoted lover of animals, and has given a standingorder that none of his employees shall, if they see a starving kitten onthe street, leave it to suffer and die. Accordingly his office is a sortof refuge for unfortunate cats, and one may always see a number ofhappy-looking creatures there, who seem to appreciate the kindness whichsurrounds them. The office is in a fifth story overlooking Fifth Avenue:and the cats used to crawl out on the wide window-ledge in summer-timeand enjoy the air and the view of Madison Square. But alas! The Lairdand Little Billee came to their deaths by jumping from their high perchafter sparrows and falling to the pavement below. Now there is a strongwire grating across the windows, and Taffy, a monstrous, shiny blackfellow, is the leader in the "_Town Topics_ Colony. "

Dr. H. L. Hammond, of Killingly, Ct. , makes a speciality of the rareAustralian cats, and has taken numerous prizes with them at every catshow in this country, where they are universally admired. His Columbiais valued at six hundred dollars, and his Tricksey at five hundreddollars. They are, indeed, beautiful creatures, though somewhat uniquein the cat world, as we see it. They are very sleek cats, with fur soshort, glossy, and fine that it looks like the finest satin. Their headsare small and narrow, with noses that seem pointed when compared withother cats. They are very intelligent and affectionate little creatures, and make the loveliest of pets. Dr. And Mrs. Hammond are extremely fondof their unusual and valuable cat family, --and tell the most interestingtales of their antics and habits. His Columbia was an imported cat, andthe doctor has reason to believe that she with her mate are originallyfrom the Siamese cat imported from Siam to Australia. They are all verydelicate as kittens, the mother rarely having more than one at a time. With two exceptions, these cats have never had more than two kittens ata litter. They are very partial to heat, but cannot stand cold weather. They have spells of sleeping when nothing has power to disturb them, butwhen they do wake up they have a "high time, " running and playing. Theyare affectionate, being very fond of their owner, but rather shy withstrangers. They are uncommonly intelligent, too, and are very teachablewhen young. They are such beautiful creatures, besides being rare inthis part of the world, that it is altogether probable that they will bemuch sought after as pets. 

CHAPTER IX

CONCERNING CATS IN POETRY

As far back as the ninth century, a poem on a cat was written, which hascome down to us from the Arabic. Its author was Ibn Alalaf Alnaharwany, of Bagdad, who died in 318 A. H. Or A. D. 930. He was one of the betterknown poets of the khalifate, and his work may still be found in theoriginal. The following verses, which were translated by Dr. Carlyle, are confessedly a paraphrase rather than a strict translation; but, ofcourse, the sense is the same. Commentators differ on the question as towhether the poet really meant anything more in this poem than to sing ofthe death of a pet, and some have tried to ascribe to it a hiddenmeaning which implies beautiful slaves, lovers, and assignations; justas the wise Browning student discovers meanings in that great poet'sworks of which he never dreamed. Nevertheless, we who love cats are fainto believe that this follower of Mahomet meant only to celebrate themerits--perhaps it would hardly do to call them virtues--of his belovedcat. 

The lines are inscribed, --

 ON A CAT

 THAT WAS KILLED AS SHE WAS ATTEMPTING TO ROB A DOVE-HOUSE

 BY IBN ALALAF ALNAHARWANY

 Poor Puss is gone!--'tis Fate's decree-- Yet I must still her loss deplore; For dearer than a child was she, And ne'er shall I behold her more!

 With many a sad, presaging tear, This morn I saw her steal away, While she went on without a fear, Except that she should miss her prey. 

 I saw her to the dove-house climb, With cautious feet and slow she stept, Resolved to balance loss of time By eating faster than she crept. 

 Her subtle foes were on the watch, And marked her course, with fury fraught; And while she hoped the birds to catch, An arrow's point the huntress caught. 

 In fancy she had got them all, And drunk their blood and sucked their breath; Alas! she only got a fall, And only drank the draught of death. 

 Why, why was pigeon's flesh so nice, That thoughtless cats should love it thus? Hadst thou but lived on rats and mice, Thou hadst been living still, poor Puss!

 Cursed be the taste, howe'er refined, That prompts us for such joys to wish; And cursed the dainty where we find Destruction lurking in the dish. 

Among the poets, Pussy has always found plenty of friends. Her felinegrace and softness has inspired some of the greatest, and, from Tassoand Petrarch down, her quiet and dignified demeanor have been celebratedin verse. Mr. Swinburne, within a few years, has written a charming poemwhich was published in the _Athenaeum_, and which places the writeramong the select inner circle of true cat-lovers. He calls his verses--

 TO A CAT

 Stately, kindly, lordly friend, Condescend Here to sit by me, and turn Glorious eyes that smile and burn, Golden eyes, love's lustrous meed, On the golden page I read. 

 * * * * *

 Dogs may fawn on all and some As they come: You a friend of loftier mind, Answer friends alone in kind. Just your foot upon my hand Softly bids it understand. 

Thomas Gray's poem on the death of Robert Walpole's cat, which wasdrowned in a bowl of goldfish, was greatly prized by the latter; afterthe death of the poet the bowl was placed on a pedestal at StrawberryHill, with a few lines from the poem as an inscription. In a letterdated March 1, 1747, accompanying it, Mr. Gray says:--

"As one ought to be particularly careful to avoid blunders in acompliment of condolence, it would be a sensible satisfaction to me(before I testify my sorrow and the sincere part I take in yourmisfortune) to know for certain who it is I lament. [Note the 'Who. '] Iknew Zara and Selima (Selima was it, or Fatima?), or rather I knew themboth together, for I cannot justly say which was which. Then, as to yourhandsome cat, the name you distinguish her by, I am no less at a loss, as well knowing one's handsome cat is always the cat one likes best; orif one be alive and the other dead, it is usually the latter that is thehandsomest. Besides, if the point were never so clear, I hope you do notthink me so ill bred or so imprudent as to forfeit all my interest inthe survivor. Oh, no; I would rather seem to mistake and imagine, to besure, it must be the tabby one that had met with this sad accident. Tillthis affair is a little better determined, you will excuse me if I donot cry, 'Tempus inane peto, requiem, spatiumque doloris. '"

He closes the letter by saying, "There's a poem for you; it is rathertoo long for an epitaph. " And then the familiar--

 "'Twas on a lofty vase's side, Where China's gayest art had dy'd The azure flowers that blow: Demurest of the tabby kind, The pensive Selima, reclined, Gazed on the lake below. "

Wordsworth's "Kitten and the Falling Leaves, " is in the high, moralizingstyle. 

 "That way look, my Infant, lo! What a pretty baby show. See the kitten on the wall, Sporting with the leaves that fall, * * * * *

 "But the kitten, how she starts, Crouches, stretches, paws, and darts First at one and then its fellow, Just as light and just as yellow: There are many now--now one, Now they stop, and there are none. What intentness of desire In her upward eye of fire! With a tiger-leap halfway Now she meets the coming prey, Lets it go as fast, and then Has it in her power again: Now she works with three or four. Like an Indian conjuror: Quick as he in feats of art, Far beyond in joy of heart. Were her antics played in the eye Of a thousand standers-by, Clapping hands with shout and stare, What would little Tabby care For the plaudits of the crowd? Over happy to be proud, Over wealthy in the treasure Of her own exceeding pleasure. 

 * * * * *

 "Pleased by any random toy: By a kitten's busy joy, Or an infant's laughing eye Sharing in the ecstacy: I would fain like that or this Find my wisdom in my bliss: Keep the sprightly soul awake, And have faculties to take, Even from things by sorrow wrought, Matter for a jocund thought, Spite of care and spite of grief, To gambol with life's falling leaf. "

Cowper's love for animals was well known. At one time, according to LadyHesketh, he had besides two dogs, two goldfinches, and two canaries, five rabbits, three hares, two guinea-pigs, a squirrel, a magpie, a jay, and a starling. In addition he had, at least, one cat, for Lady Heskethsays, "One evening the cat giving one of the hares a sound box on theear, the hare ran after her, and having caught her, punished her bydrumming on her back with her two feet hard as drumsticks, till thecreature would actually have been killed had not Mrs. Unwin rescuedher. " It might have been this very cat that was the inspiration ofCowper's poem, "To a Retired Cat, " which had as a moral the familiarstanza:--

 "Beware of too sublime a sense Of your own worth and consequence: The man who dreams himself so great And his importance of such weight, That all around, in all that's done, Must move and act for him alone, Will learn in school of tribulation The folly of his expectation. "

Baudelaire wrote:--

 "Come, beauty, rest upon my loving heart, But cease thy paws' sharp-nailed play, And let me peer into those eyes that dart Mixed agate and metallic ray. "

 * * * * *

 "Grave scholars and mad lovers all admire And love, and each alike, at his full tide Those suave and puissant cats, the fireside's pride, Who like the sedentary life and glow of fire. "

Goldsmith also wrote of the kitten:--

 "Around in sympathetic mirth Its tricks the kitten tries: The cricket chirrups in the hearth, The crackling fagot flies. "

Does this not suggest a charming glimpse of the poet's English home?

Keats was evidently not acquainted with the best and sleekest pet cat, and his "Sonnet to a Cat" does not indicate that he fully appreciatedtheir higher qualities. 

Mr. Whittier, our good Quaker poet, while not attempting an elaboratesonnet or stilted elegiac, shows a most appreciative spirit in the lineshe wrote for a little girl who asked him one day, with tears in hereyes, to write an epitaph for her lost Bathsheba. 

 "Bathsheba: To whom none ever said scat, No worthier cat Ever sat on a mat Or caught a rat: _Requies-cat_. "

Clinton Scollard, however, has given us an epitaph that manysympathizing admirers would gladly inscribe on the tombstones of theirlost pets, if it were only the popular fashion to put tombstones overtheir graves. This is Mr. Scollard's tribute, the best ever written:--

 GRIMALKIN

 AN ELEGY ON PETER, AGED TWELVE

 In vain the kindly call: in vain The plate for which thou once wast fain At morn and noon and daylight's wane, O King of mousers. No more I hear thee purr and purr As in the frolic days that were, When thou didst rub thy velvet fur Against my trousers. 

 How empty are the places where Thou erst wert frankly debonair, Nor dreamed a dream of feline care, A capering kitten. The sunny haunts where, grown a cat, You pondered this, considered that, The cushioned chair, the rug, the mat, By firelight smitten. 

 Although of few thou stoodst in dread, How well thou knew a friendly tread, And what upon thy back and head The stroking hand meant. A passing scent could keenly wake Thy eagerness for chop or steak, Yet, Puss, how rarely didst thou break The eighth commandment. 

 Though brief thy life, a little span Of days compared with that of man, The time allotted to thee ran In smoother metre. Now with the warm earth o'er thy breast, O wisest of thy kind and best, Forever mayst thou softly rest, _In pace_, Peter. 

One only has to read this poem to feel that Mr. Scollard knew what it isto love a gentle, intelligent, affectionate cat--made so by kindtreatment. 

To François Coppée the cat is as sacred as it was to the Egyptians ofold. The society of his feline pets is to him ever delightful andconsoling, and it may have inspired him to write some of his mostmelodious verses. Nevertheless he is not the cat's poet. It was CharlesCros who wrote:--

 "Chatte blanche, chatte sans tache, Je te demande dans ces vers Quel secret dort dans tes yeux verts, Quel sarcasme sous ta moustache?"

Here is a version in verse of the famous "Kilkenny Cats":--

 "O'Flynn, she was an Irishman, as very well was known, And she lived down in Kilkenny, and she lived there all alone, With only six great large tom-cats that knowed their ways about; And everybody else besides she scrupulously shut out. "

 "Oh, very fond of cats was she, and whiskey, too, 'tis said, She didn't feed 'em very much, but she combed 'em well instead: As may be guessed, these large tom-cats did not get very sleek Upon a combing once a day and a 'haporth' once a week. 

 "Now, on one dreary winter's night O'Flynn she went to bed With a whiskey bottle under her arm, the whiskey in her head. The six great large tom-cats they all sat in a dismal row, And horridly glared their hazy eyes, their tails wagged to and fro. 

 "At last one grim graymalkin spoke, in accents dire to tell, And dreadful were the words which in his horrid whisper fell: And all the six large tom-cats in answer loud did squall, 'Let's kill her, and let's eat her, body, bones, and all. '

 "Oh, horrible! Oh, terrible! Oh, deadly tale to tell! When the sun shone through the window-hole all seemed still and well: The cats they sat and licked their paws all in a merry ring. But nothing else in all the house looked like a living thing. 

 "Anon they quarrelled savagely--they spit, they swore, they hollered: At last these six great large tom-cats they one another swallered: And naught but one long tail was left in that once peaceful dwelling, And a very tough one, too, it was--it's the same that I've been telling. "

By far more artistic is the version for which I am indebted to MissKatharine Eleanor Conway, herself a poet of high order and a lover ofcats. 

THE KILKENNY CATS

 There wanst was two cats in Kilkenny, Aitch thought there was one cat too many; So they quarrelled and fit, They scratched and they bit, Till, excepting their nails, And the tips of their tails, Instead of two cats, there wasn't any. 

This version comes from Ireland, and is doubtless the correct original. 

"Note, " says Miss Conway, "the more than Greek delicacy with which thetragedy is told. No mutilation, no gore; just an effacement--prompt andabsolute--'there wasn't any. ' It would be hard to overpraise that finetouch. "

CHAPTER X

CONCERNING CAT ARTISTS

While thousands of artists, first and last, have undertaken to paintcats, there are but few who have been able to do them justice. Artistswho have possessed the technical skill requisite to such delicate workhave rarely been willing to give to what they have regarded asunimportant subjects the necessary study; and those who have beenwilling to study cats seriously have possessed but seldom the skillrequisite to paint them well. 

Thomas Janvier, whose judgment on such matters is unquestioned, declaresthat not a dozen have succeeded in painting thoroughly good catportraits, portraits so true to nature as to satisfy--if they couldexpress their feelings in the premises--the cat subjects and their catfriends. Only four painters, he says, ever painted cats habitually andalways well. 

Two members of this small but highly distinguished company flourishedabout a century ago in widely separated parts of the world, and withouteither of them knowing that the other existed. 

One was a Japanese artist, named Ho-Kou-Say, whose method of painting, of course, was quite unlike that to which we are accustomed in thiswestern part of the world, but who had a wonderful faculty for makinghis queer little cat figures seem intensely alive. 

The other was a Swiss artist, named Gottfried Mind, whose cat picturesare so perfect in their way that he came to be honorably known as "theCat Raphael. "

The other two members of the cat quartet are the French artist, MonsieurLouis Eugene Lambert, whose pictures are almost as well known in thiscountry as they are in France; and the Dutch artist, Madame HenrietteRonner, whose delightful cat pictures are known even better, as shecatches the softer and sweeter graces of the cat more truly thanLambert. 

A thoroughly good picture of a cat is hard to paint, from a technicalstandpoint, because the artist must represent not only the soft surfaceof fur, but the underlying hard lines of muscle: and his studies must bemade under conditions of cat perversity which are at times quite enoughto drive him wild. If he is to represent the cat in repose, he must waitfor her to take that position of her own accord; and then, just as hissketch is well under way, she is liable to rise, stretch herself, andwalk off. If his picture is to represent action, he must wait for thecat to do what he wants her to do, and that many times before he can bequite sure that his drawing is correct. With these severe limitationsupon cat painting, it is not surprising that very few good pictures ofcats have been painted. 

Gottfried Mind has left innumerable pen sketches to prove his intimateknowledge of the beauty and charm of the cat. He was born at Berne in1768. He had a special taste for drawing animals even when very young, bears and cats being his favorite subjects. As he grew older he obtaineda wonderful proficiency, and his cat pictures appeared with everyvariety of expression. Their silky coats, their graceful attitudes, their firm shape beneath the undulating fur, were treated so as to makeMind's cats seem alive. 

It was Madame Lebrun who named him the "Raphael of Cats, " and many aroyal personage bought his pictures. He, like most cat painters, kepthis cats constantly with him, knowing that only by persistent and nevertiring study could he ever hope to master their infinite variety. Hisfavorite mother cat kept closely at his side when he worked, or perhapsin his lap; while her kittens ran over him as fearlessly as they playedwith their mother's tail. When a terrible epidemic broke out among thecats of Berne in 1809, he hid his Minette safely from the police, but henever quite recovered from the horror of the massacre of the eighthundred that had to be sacrificed for the general safety of the people. He died in 1814, and in poverty, although a few years afterward hispictures brought extravagant prices. 

Burbank, the English painter, has done some good things in cat pictures. The expression of the face and the peculiar light in the cat's eye madeup the realism of Burbank's pictures, which were reproductions of sleekand handsome drawing-room pets, whose shining coats he brings out withremarkable precision. 

The ill-fated Swiss artist Cornelius Wisscher's marvellous tom-cat hasbecome typical. 

Delacroix, the painter of tigers, was a man of highly nervoustemperament, but his cat sketches bring out too strongly the tigerishelement to be altogether successful. 

Louis Eugene Lambert was a pupil of Delacroix. He was born in Paris, September 25, 1825, and the chief event of his youth was, perhaps, thegreat friendship which existed between him and Maurice Sands. Entomologywas a fad with him for a time, but he finally took up his seriouslife-work in 1854, when he began illustrating for the _Journal ofAgriculture_. In connection with his work, he began to study animalscarefully, making dogs his specialty. In 1862 he illustrated an editionof La Fontaine, and in 1865 he obtained his first medal for a paintingof dogs. In 1866 his painting of cats, "L'Horloge qui avance, " wonanother medal, and brought his first fame as a cat painter. In 1874 hewas made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. His "Envoi" in 1874, "LesChats du Cardinal, " and "Grandeur Decline" brought more medals. Althoughhe has painted hosts of excellent dog pictures, cats are his favorites, on account, as he says, of "les formes fines et gracieux; mouvements, souple et subtil. "

In the Luxembourg Gallery, Mr. Lambert's "Family of Cats" is consideredone of the finest cat pictures in the world. In this painting the mothersits upon a table watching the antics of her four frivolous kittens. There is a wonderful smoothness of touch and refinement of treatmentthat have never yet been excelled. "After the Banquet" is anotherexcellent example of the same smoothness of execution, with fulness ofaction instead of repose. And yet there is an undeniable lack of thesofter attributes which should be evident in the faces of the group. 

It is here that Madame Ronner excels all other cat painters, living ordead. She not only infuses a wonderful degree of life into her littlefigures, but reproduces the shades of expression, shifting and variableas the sands of the sea, as no other artist of the brush has done. Asleep or awake, her cats look exactly to the "felinarian" like catswith whom he or she is familiar. Curiosity, drowsiness, indifference, alertness, love, hate, anxiety, temper, innocence, cunning, fear, confidence, mischief, earnestness, dignity, helplessness, --they are allin Madame Ronner's cats' faces, just as we see them in our own cats. 

Madame Ronner is the daughter of Josephus Augustus Knip, a landscapepainter of some celebrity sixty years ago, and from her father shereceived her first art education. She is now over seventy years old, andfor nearly fifty years has made her home in Brussels. There, she and herhappy cats, a big black Newfoundland dog named Priam, with a pertcockatoo named Coco, dwell together in a roomy house in its own grounds, back a little from the Charleroi Road. Madame Ronner has a good son tocare for her, and she loves the animals, who are both her servants andher friends. Every day she spends three good hours of the morning in herstudio, painting her delightful cat pictures with the energy of a youngartist and the expert precision which we know so well. She was sixteenwhen she succeeded in painting a picture which was accepted and sold ata public exhibition at Dusseldorf. This was a study of a cat seated in awindow and examining with great curiosity a bumblebee; while it wouldnot compare with her later work, there must have been good quality init, or it would not have got into a Dusseldorf picture exhibition atall. At any rate, it was the beginning of her successful career as anartist. From that time she managed to support herself and her father bypainting pictures of animals. For many years, however, she confinedherself to painting dogs. Her most famous picture, "The Friend of Man, "belongs to this period--a pathetic group composed of a sorrowing oldsand-seller looking down upon a dying dog still harnessed to the littlesand-wagon, with the two other dogs standing by with wistful looks ofsympathy. When this picture was exhibited, in 1860, Madame Ronner's famewas established permanently. 

But it so happened that in the same year a friendly kitten came to livein her home, wandering in through the open doorway from no one knewwhere, and deciding, after sniffing about the place in cat fashion, toremain there for the remainder of its days. And it also happened thatMadame Ronner was lured by this small stranger, who so coolly quarteredhimself upon her, to change the whole current of her artistic life, andto paint cats instead of dogs. Of course, this change could not be madein a moment; but after that the pictures which she painted to pleaseherself were cat pictures, and as these were exhibited and herreputation as a cat painter became established, cat orders took theplace of dog orders more and more, until at last her time was givenwholly to cat painting. Her success in painting cat action has been dueas much to her tireless patience as to her skill; a patience that gaveher strength to spend hours upon hours in carefully watching the quickmovements of the lithe little creatures, and in correcting again andagain her rapidly made sketches. 

Every cat-lover knows that a cat cannot be induced, either by reason orby affection, to act in accordance with any wishes save its own. Alsothat cats find malicious amusement in doing what they know they are notwanted to do, and that with an affectation of innocence that materiallyaggravates their deliberate offence. 

But Madame Ronner, through her long experience, has evolved a way to getthem to pose as models. Her plan is the simple one of keeping her modelsprisoners in a glass box, enclosed in a wire cage, while she is paintingthem. Inside the prison she cannot always command their actions, but herknowledge of cat character enables her to a certain extent to persuadethem to take the pose which she requires. By placing a comfortablecushion in the cage she can tempt her model to lie down; some object ofgreat interest, like a live mouse, for instance, exhibited just outsidethe cage is sure to create the eager look that she has shown so well oncat faces; and to induce her kittens to indulge in the leaps and boundswhich she has succeeded so wonderfully in transferring to canvas, shekeeps hanging from the top of the cage a most seductive "bob. "

Madame Ronner's favorite models are "Jem" and "Monmouth, " cats of raresweetness of temper, whose conduct in all relations of life is abovereproach. The name of "Monmouth, " as many will recall, was made famousby the hero of Monsieur La Bedolierre's classic, "Mother Michel and herCat, " [Footnote: Translated into English by Thomas Bailey Aldrich. ] andtherefore has clustering about it traditions so glorious that its wearersin modern times must be upheld always by lofty hopes and high resolves. Doubtless Monmouth Ronner feels the responsibility entailed upon him byhis name. 

In the European galleries are several noted paintings in which the catappears more or less unsuccessfully. Breughel and Teniers made theirgrotesque "Cat Concerts" famous, but one can scarcely see why, since thedrawing is poor and there is no real insight into cat character evident. The sleeping cat, in Breughel's "Paradise Lost" in the Louvre, isbetter, being well drawn, but so small as to leave no chance forexpression. Lebrun's "Sleep of the Infant Jesus, " in the Louvre, has aslumbering cat under the stove, and in Barocci's "La Madonna del Gatto"the cat is the centre of interest. Holman Hunt's "The AwakeningConscience" and Murillo's Holy Family "del Pajarito" give the cat as atype of cruelty, but have failed egregiously in accuracy of form orexpression. Paul Veronese's cat in "The Marriage at Cana" is fearfullyand wonderfully made, and even Rembrandt failed when he tried tointroduce a cat into his pictures. 

Rosa Bonheur has been wise enough not to attempt cat pictures, knowingthat special study, for which she had not the time or the inclination, is necessary to fit an artist to excel with the feline character. Landseer, too, after trying twice, once in 1819 with "The Cat Disturbed"and once in 1824 with "The Cat's Paw, " gave up all attempts at dealingwith Grimalkin. Indeed, most artists who have attempted it, have foundthat to be a wholly successful cat artist such whole-hearted devotion tothe subject as Madame Ronner's is the invariable price of distinction. 

Of late, however, more artists are found who are willing to pay thisprice, who are giving time and study not only to the subtle shadings ofthe delicate fur, but to the varying facial expression and sinuousmovements of the cat. Margaret Stocks, of Munich, for example, israpidly coming to the front as a cat painter, and some predict for her(she is still a young woman) a future equal to Madame Ronner's. GambierBolton's "Day Dreams" shows admirably the quality and "tumbled-ness" ofan Angora kitten's fur, while the expression and drawing are equallygood. Miss Cecilia Beaux's "Brighton Cats" is famous, and every studentof cats recognizes its truthfulness at once. 

Angora and Persian kittens find another loving and faithful student inJ. Adam, whose paintings have been photographed and reproduced in thiscountry times without number. "Puss in Boots" is another foreign picturewhich has been photographed and sold extensively in this country. "Little Milksop" by the same artist, Mr. Frank Paton, gives fairlyfaithful drawing and expression of two kittens who have broken a milkpitcher and are eagerly lapping up the contents. 

In the Munich Gallery there is a painting by Claus Meyer, "Bose Zungen, "which has become quite noted. His three old cats and three young catsshow three gossiping old crones by the side of whom are three small andawkward kittens. 

Of course, there are no artists whose painting of the cat is to becompared with Madame Ronner's. Mr. J. L. Dolph, of New York City, haspainted hundreds of cat pieces which have found a ready sale, and Mr. Sid L. Brackett, of Boston, is doing very creditable work. A successfulcat painter of the younger school is Mr. N. N. Bickford, of New York, whose "Peek-a-Boo" hangs in a Chicago gallery side by side with cats ofMadame Ronner and Monsieur Lambert. "Miss Kitty's Birthday" shows thathe has genuine understanding of cat character, and is mastering thesubtleties of long white fur. 

Mr. Bickford is a pupil of Jules Lefèbvre Boulanger and Miralles. It wasby chance that he became a painter of cats. Mademoiselle Marie Engle, the prima-donna, owned a beautiful white Angora cat which she prizedvery highly, and as her engagements abroad compelled her to part withthe cat for a short time, she left Mizzi with the artist until herreturn. One day Mr. Bickford thought he would try painting the white, silken fur of Mizzi: the result not only surprised him but also hisartist friends, who said, "Lambert himself could not have done better. "

Upon Miss Engle's return, seeing what an inspiration her cat had been, she gave her to Mr. Bickford, and it is needless to add that he hasbecome deeply attached to his beautiful model. Mizzi is a pure whiteAngora, with beautiful blue eyes, and silky fur. She won first prize atthe National Cat Show of 1895, but no longer attends cat shows, onaccount of her engagements as professional model. 

Ben Austrian, who has made a success in painting other animals, has donea cat picture of considerable merit. The subject was Tix, a beautifultiger-gray, belonging to Mr. Mahlon W. Newton, of Philadelphia. The catis noted, not only in Philadelphia, but among travelling men, as heresides at a hotel, and is quite a prominent member of the office force. He weighs fifteen pounds and is of a very affectionate nature, followinghis master to the park and about the establishment like a dog. Duringthe day he lives in the office, lying on the counter or the key-rack, but at night he retires with his master at eleven or twelve o'clock, sleeping in his own basket in the bathroom, and waking his masterpromptly at seven every morning. Tix's picture hangs in the office ofhis hotel, and is becoming as famous as the cat. 

Elizabeth Bonsall is a young American artist who has exhibited some goodcat pictures, and whose work promises to make her famous some day, ifshe does not "weary in well-doing"; and Mr. Jean Paul Selinger's"Kittens" are quite well known. 

The good cat illustrator is even more rare than the cat painters. Thousands of readers recall those wonderfully lifelike cats and kittenswhich were a feature of the _St. Nicholas_ a few years ago, accompanied by "nonsense rhymes" or "jingles. " They were the work ofJoseph G. Francis, of Brookline, Mass. , and brought him no little fame. He was, and is still, a broker on State Street, Boston, and in his busylife these inimitable cat sketches were but an incident. Mr. Francis isa devoted admirer of all cats, and had for many years loved and studiedone cat in particular. It was by accident that he discovered his ownpossibilities in the line of cat drawing, as he began making littlepen-and-ink sketches for his own amusement and then for that of hisfriends. The latter persuaded him to send some of these drawings to the_St. Nicholas_ and the _Wide-Awake_ magazines, and, rather tohis surprise, they were promptly accepted, and the "Francis cats" becamefamous. Mr. Francis does but little artistic work, nowadays, moreimportant business keeping him well occupied; besides, he says, he "isnot in the mood for it. "

Who does not know Louis Wain's cats?--that prince of Englishillustrators. Mr. Wain's home, when not in London, is at Bendigo Lodge, Westgate, Kent. He began his artistic career at nineteen, after atraining in the best London schools. He was not a hard worker over hisbooks, but his fondness for nature led him to an artist's career. American Indian stories were his delight, and accounts of the wanderingoutdoor life of our aborigines were instrumental in developing hispowers of observation regarding the details of nature. Always fond ofdumb animals, he began life by making sketches for sporting papers atagricultural shows all over England. It was his own cat "Peter" whofirst suggested to Louis Wain the fanciful cat creations which have madehis name famous. Watching Peter's antics one evening, he was tempted todo a small study of kittens, which was promptly accepted by a magazineeditor in London. Then he trained Peter to become a model and thestarting-point of his success. Peter has done more to wipe out ofEngland the contempt in which the cat was formerly held there, than anyother feline in the world. He has done his race a service in raisingtheir status from neglected, forlorn creatures on the one hand, or thepampered, overfed object of old maids' affections on the other, to adignified place in the English house. 

The double-page picture of the "Cat's Christmas Dance" in the _LondonIllustrated News_ of December 6, 1890, contains a hundred and fiftycats, with as many varying facial expressions and attitudes. It occupiedeleven working days of Mr. Wain's time, but it caught the public fancyand made a tremendous hit all over the world. Louis Wain's catsimmediately became famous, and he has had more orders than he can fillever since. He works eight hours a day, and then lays aside his brush tostudy physical science, or write a humorous story. He has written andillustrated a comic book, and spent a great deal of time over a moreserious one. 

Among the best known of his cat pictures, after the "Christmas Party, "is his "Cats' Rights Meeting, " which not even the most ardent suffragistcan study without laughter. From a desk an ardent tabby is expounding, loud and long, on the rights of her kind. In front of her is a doublerow of felines, sitting with folded arms, and listening with absorbedattention. The expressions of these cats' faces, some ardent, someindignant, some placid, but all interested, form a ridiculous contrastto a row of "Toms" in the rear, who evidently disagree with thelecturer, and are prepared to hiss at her more "advanced" ideas. "Returning Thanks" is nearly as amusing, with its thirteen cats seatedat table over their wine, while one offers thanks, and the remainderwear varying expressions of devotion, indifference, or irreverence. "Bringing Home the Yule Log" gives twenty-one cats, and as manyindividual expressions of joy or discomfort; and the "Snowball Match"shows a scene almost as hilarious as the "Christmas Dance. "

Mr. Wain believes there is a great future for black and white work if aman is careful to keep abreast of the times. "A man should first of allcreate his public and draw upon his own fund of originality to sustainit, " he says, "taking care not to pander to the degenerate tendencieswhich would prevent his work from elevating the finer instincts of thepeople. " Says a recent visitor to the Wain household: "I wonder if Peterrealizes that he has done more good than most human beings, who areendowed not only with sense but with brains? if in the firelight, hesees the faces of many a suffering child whose hours of pain have beenshortened by the recital of his tricks, and the pictures of himselfarrayed in white cravat, or gayly disporting himself on a 'see-saw'? Ifeel inclined to wake him up, and whisper how, one cold winter's night, I met a party of five little children, hatless and bootless, hurryingalong an East-end slum, and saying encouragingly to the youngest, whowas crying with cold and hunger, 'Come along: we'll get there soon. ' Ifollowed them down the lighted street till they paused in front of abarber's shop, and I heard their voices change to a shout of merriment:for in the window was a crumpled Christmas supplement, and Peter, in afrolicsome mood, was represented entertaining at a large cats'tea-party. Hunger, and cold, and misery were all dispelled. Who wouldnot be a cat of Louis Wain's, capable of creating ten minutes' sunshinein a childish heart?"

Mr. Wain announces a discovery in relation to cats which corroborates atheory of my own, adopted from long observation and experience. 

"I have found, " he says, "as a result of many years of inquiry andstudy, that people who keep cats and are in the habit of petting them, do not suffer from those petty ailments which all flesh is heir to. Rheumatism and nervous complaints are uncommon with them, and Pussy'slovers are of the sweetest temperament. I have often felt the benefit, after a long spell of mental effort, of having my cats sitting across myshoulders, or of half an hour's chat with Peter. "

This is a frequent experience of my own. Nothing is more restful andsoothing after a busy day than sitting with my hands buried in the softsides of one of my cats. 

"Do you know, " said one of my neighbors, recently, "when I am troubledwith insomnia, lately, I get up and get Bingo from his bed, and take himto mine. I can go to sleep with my hands on him. "

There is a powerful magnetic influence which emanates from a sleepy oreven a quiet cat, that many an invalid has experienced without realizingit. If physicians were to investigate this feature of the cat'selectrical and magnetic influence, in place of anatomical research afterdeath, or the horrible practice of vivisection, they might be doing areal service to humanity. 

Mr. Wain's success as an illustrator brought him great prominence in theNational Cat Club of England, and he has been for a number of years itspresident, doing much to raise the condition and quality of cats and thestatus of the club. He has a number of beautiful and high-bred cats atBendigo Lodge. 

With regard to the painting of cats Champfleury said, "The lines are sodelicate, the eyes are distinguished by such remarkable qualities, themovements are due to such sudden impulses, that to succeed in theportrayal of such a subject, one must be feline one's self. " And Mr. Spielman gives the following advice to those who would paint cats:--

"You must love them, as Mahomet and Chesterfield loved them: be as fondof their company as Wolsley and Richelieu, Mazarin and Colbert, whoretained them even during their most impressive audiences: as Petrarch, and Dr. Johnson, and Canon Liddon, and Ludovic Halévy, who wrote withthem at their elbow: and Tasso and Gray, who celebrated them in verse:as sympathetic as Carlyle, whom Mrs. Allingham painted in the company ofhis beloved 'Tib' in the garden at Chelsea, or as Whittington, the heroof our milk-and-water days: think of El Daher Beybars, who fed allfeline comers, or 'La Belle Stewart, ' Duchess of Richmond, who, in thewords of the poet, 'endowed a college' for her little friends: you mustbe as approbative of their character, their amenableness to education, their inconstancy, not to say indifference and their general lack ofprinciple, as Madame de Custine: and as appreciative of their daintinessand grace as Alfred de Musset. Then, and not till then, can you consideryourself sentimentally equipped for studying the art of cat painting. "

CHAPTER XI

CONCERNING CAT HOSPITALS AND REFUGES

At comparatively frequent intervals we read of some woman, historic ormodern, who has left an annuity (as the Duchess of Richmond, "La BelleStewart") for the care of her pet cats; now and then a man provides forthem in his will, as Lord Chesterfield, for instance, who left apermanent pension for his cats and their descendants. But I find onlyone who has endowed a home for them and given it sufficient means tosupport the strays and waifs who reach its shelter. 

Early in the eighties, Captain Nathan Appleton, of Boston (a brother ofthe poet Longfellow's wife, and of Thomas Appleton, the celebrated wit), returned from a stay in London with a new idea, that of founding somesort of a refuge, or hospital, for sick or stray cats and dogs. He hadvisited Battersea, and been deeply impressed with the need of a shelterfor small and friendless domestic animals. 

At Battersea there is an institution similar to the one the Society forPrevention of Cruelty to Animals in New York have at East 120th Street, where stray animals may be sent and kept for a few days awaiting thepossible appearance of a claimant or owner; at the end of which time theanimals are placed in the "lethal chamber, " where they die instantly andpainlessly by asphyxiation. In Boston, the Society of Prevention ofCruelty to Animals have no such refuge or pound, but in place of it keepone or two men whose business it is to go wherever sent and "mercifullyput to death" the superfluous, maimed, or sick animals that shall begiven them. 

Captain Appleton's idea, however, was something entirely different fromthis. These creatures, he argued, have a right to their lives and thepursuit of happiness after their own fashion, and he proposed to helpthem to enjoy that right. He appealed to a few sympathetic friends andgave two or three acres of land from his own estate, near "NonantumHill, " where the Apostle Eliot preached to the Indians, and where hisiodine springs are located. He had raised a thousand or two dollars andplanned a structure of some kind to shelter stray dogs and cats, whenthe good angel that attends our household pets guided him to the lawyerwho had charge of the estates of Miss Ellen M. Gifford, of New Haven, Ct. "I think I can help you, " said the lawyer. But he would say nothingmore at that time. A few weeks later, Captain Appleton was sent for. Miss Gifford had become deeply interested in the project, and aftermaking more inquiries, gave the proposed home some twenty-five thousanddollars, adding to this amount afterward and providing for theinstitution in her will. It has already had over one hundred thousanddollars from Miss Gifford's estates, and it is so well endowed and wellmanaged that it is self-supporting. 

The Ellen M. Gifford Sheltering Home for Animals is situated near theBrookline edge of the Brighton district in Boston. In fact, theresidential portion of aristocratic Brookline is so fast creeping up toit that the whole six acres of the institution will doubtless soon bedisposed of at a very handsome profit, while the dogs and cats willretire to a more remote district to "live on the interest of theirmoney. "

The main building is a small but handsome brick affair, facing on LakeStreet. This is the home of the superintendent, and contains, besides, the offices of the establishment. Over the office is a tablet with thisinscription, taken from a letter of Miss Gifford's about the time thehome was opened:--

"If only the waifs, the strays, the sick, the abused, would be sure toget entrance to the home, and anybody could feel at liberty to bring ina starved or ill-treated animal and have it cared for without pay, myobject would be obtained. March 27, 1884. "

The superintendent is a lover of animals as well as a good businessmanager, and his work is in line with the sentence just quoted. Any onewanting a cat or a dog, and who can promise it a good home, may applythere. But Mr. Perkins does not take the word of a stranger at random. He investigates their circumstances and character, and never gives awayan animal unless he can be reasonably sure of its going to a good home. For instance, he once received an application from one man for six cats. The wholesale element in the order made him slightly suspicious, and heimmediately drove to Boston, where he found that his would-be customerowned a big granary overrun with mice. He sent the six cats, and twoweeks later went to see how they were getting on, when he found themliving happily in a big grain-loft, fat and contented as the mostdevoted Sultan of Egypt could have asked. None but street cats and straydogs, homeless waifs, ill-treated and half starved, are received at thishome. Occasionally, some family desiring to get rid of the animal theyhave petted for months, perhaps years, will send it over to theSheltering Home. But if Mr. Perkins can find where it came from hepromptly returns it, for even this place, capable of comfortably housinga hundred cats and as many dogs, cannot accommodate all the unfortunatesthat are picked up in the streets of Boston. The accommodations, too, while they are comfortable and even luxurious for the poor creaturesthat have hitherto slept on ash-barrels and stone flaggings, are unfitfor household pets that have slept on cushions, soft rugs, and milady'sbed. 

There is a dog-house and a cat-house, sufficiently far apart that theoccupants of one need not be disturbed by those of the other. In thedog-house there are rows of pens on each side of the middle aisle, inwhich from one to four or five dogs, according to size, are kept whenindoors. These are of all sorts, colors, dispositions, and sizes, ranging from pugs to St. Bernards, terriers to mastiffs. There are fewpurely bred dogs, although there are many intelligent and reallyhandsome ones. The dogs are allowed to run in the big yard that opensout from their house at certain hours of the day; but the cats' yardsare open to them all day and night. All yards and runs are enclosed withwire netting, and the cat-house has partitions of the same. All aroundthe sides of the cat-house are shelves or bunks, which are kept suppliedwith clean hay, for their beds. Here one may see cats of every color andassorted sizes, contentedly curled up in their nests, while theircompanions sit blinking in the sun, or run out in the yards. Cookedmeat, crackers and milk, and dishes of fresh water are kept where theycan get at them. The cats all look plump and well fed, and, indeed, theordinary street cat must feel that his lines have fallen in pleasantplaces. 

Not so, however, with pet cats who may be housed there. They miss thecompanionship of people, and the household belongings to which they havebeen accustomed. Sometimes it is really pathetic to see one of thesecast-off pets climb up the wire netting and plainly beg the visitor totake him away from that strange place, and give him such a home as hehas been used to. In the superintendent's house there is usually a goodcat or two of this sort, as he is apt to test a well-bred cat beforegiving him away. 

Somewhat similar, and even older than the Ellen Gifford Sheltering Home, is the Morris Refuge of Philadelphia. This institution, whose motto is"The Lord is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all hisworks, " was first established in May, 1874, by Miss Elizabeth Morris andother ladies who took an interest in the protection of sufferinganimals. It does not limit its tender mercies to cats and dogs, butcares for every suffering animal. It differs from the Ellen Gifford Homechiefly in the fact that, while the latter is a _home_ for straycats and dogs, the Morris Refuge has for its object the care for anddisposal of suffering animals of all sorts. In a word, it brings reliefto most of these unfortunate creatures by means of a swift and painlessdeath. 

It was first known as the City Refuge, although it was never maintainedby the city. In January, 1889, it was reorganized and incorporated asthe "Morris Refuge for Homeless and Suffering Animals. " It is supportedby private contributions, and is under the supervision of Miss Morrisand a corps of kind-hearted ladies of Philadelphia. A wagon is kept atthe home to respond to calls, and visits any residence where sufferinganimals may need attention. The agent of the society lives at the refugewith his family, and receives animals at any time. When notice isreceived of an animal hurt or suffering, he sends after it. Chloroformis invariably taken along, in order that, if expedient, the creature maybe put out of its agony at once. This refuge is at 1242 Lombard Street, and there is a temporary home where dogs are boarded at 923 South 11thStreet. 

In 1895, out of 23, 067 animals coming under the care of the association, 19, 672 were cats. In 1896, there were 24, 037 animals relieved anddisposed of, while the superintendent answered 230 police calls. Goodhomes are found for both dogs and cats, but not until the agent is surethat they will be kindly treated. 

In Miss Morris's eighth annual report she says: "Looking back to theformation of the first society for the prevention of cruelty to animals, we find since that time a gradual awakening to the duties man owes tothose below him in the scale of animal creation. The titles of thosesocieties and their objects, as defined by their charters, show that atfirst it was considered sufficient to protect animals from crueltreatment: very few people gave thought to the care of those that werewithout homes. Now many are beginning to think of the evil of beingoverrun with numbers of homeless creatures, whose sufferings appeal tothe sympathies of the humane, and whose noise and depredations provokethe cruelty of the hard-hearted: hence the efforts that are being madein different cities to establish refuges. A request has lately beenreceived from Montreal asking for our reports, as it is proposed tofound a home for animals in that city, and information is beingcollected in relation to such institutions. "

Lady Marcus Beresford has succeeded in establishing and endowing a homefor cats in Englefield Green, Windsor Park. She has made a specialty ofAngoras, and her collection is famous. Queen Victoria and her daughterstake a deep interest, not alone in finely bred cats, but in poor andhomeless waifs as well. Her Royal Highness, in fact, took pains to writethe London S. P. C. A. Some years ago, saying she would be very glad tohave them do something for the safety and protection of cats, "_whichare so generally misunderstood and grossly ill-treated_. " She herselfsets a good example in this respect, and when her courts remove from oneroyal residence to another, her cats are taken with her. 

There is a movement in Paris, too, to provide for sick and homeless catsas well as dogs. Two English ladies have founded a hospital nearAsnières, where ailing pets can be tended in illness, or boarded forabout ten cents a day; and very well cared for their pensioners are. There is also a charity ward where pauper patients are received andtended carefully, and afterward sold or given away to reliable people. Oddly, this sort of charity was begun by Mademoiselle Claude Bernard, the daughter of the great scientist who, it is said, tortured moreliving creatures to death than any other. Vivisection became a passionwith him, but Mademoiselle Bernard is atoning for her father's crueltyby a singular devotion to animals, and none are turned from her gates. 

This is the way they do it in Cairo even now, according to MonsieurPrisse d'Avennes, the distinguished Egyptologist:--

"The Sultan, El Daher Beybars, who reigned in Egypt and Syria toward 658of the Hegira (1260 A. D. ) and is compared by William of Tripoli to Neroin wickedness, and to Caesar in bravery, had a peculiar affection forcats. At his death, he left a garden, 'Gheyt-el-Quoltah' (the cats'orchard), situated near his mosque outside Cairo, for the support ofhomeless cats. Subsequently the field was sold and resold several timesby the administrator and purchasers. In consequence of a series ofdilapidations it now produces a nominal rent of fifteen piastres a year, which with certain other legacies is appropriated to the maintenance ofcats. The Kadi, who is the official administrator of all pious andcharitable bequests, ordains that at the hour of afternoon prayer, between noon and sunset, a daily distribution of animals' entrails andrefuse meat from the butchers' stalls, chopped up together, shall bemade to the cats of the neighborhood. This takes place in the outercourt of the 'Mehkemeh, ' or tribunal, and a curious spectacle may thenbe seen. At this hour all the terraces near the Mehkemeh are crowdedwith cats: they come jumping from house to house across the narrow Cairostreets, hurrying for their share: they slide down walls and glide intothe court, where they dispute, with great tenacity and much growling, the scanty meal so sadly out of proportion to the number of guests. Theold ones clear the food in a moment: the young ones and the newcomers, too timid to fight for their chance, must content themselves withlicking the ground. Those wanting to get rid of cats take them there anddeposit them. I have seen whole baskets of kittens deposited in thecourt, greatly to the annoyance of the neighbors. "

There are similar customs in Italy and Switzerland. In Geneva cats prowlabout the streets like dogs at Constantinople. The people chargethemselves with their maintenance, and feed the cats who come to theirdoors at the same hour every day for their meals. 

In Florence, a cloister near St. Lorenzo's Church serves as a refuge forcats. It is an ancient and curious institution, but I am unable to findwhether it is maintained by the city or by private charities. There arespecimens of all colors, sizes, and kinds, and any one who wants a cathas but to go there and ask for it. On the other hand, the owner of acat who is unable or unwilling to keep it may take it there, where it isfed and well treated. 

In Rome, they have a commendable system of caring for their cats. At acertain hour butchers' men drive through the city, with carts wellstocked with cat's meat. They utter a peculiar cry which the catsrecognize, and come hurrying out of the houses for their allowances, which are paid for by the owners at a certain rate per month. 

In Boston, during the summer of 1895, a firm of butchers tooksubscriptions from philanthropic citizens, and raised enough to defraythe expenses of feeding the cats on the Back Bay, --where, in spite ofthe fact that the citizens are all wealthy and supposedly humane, thereare more starving cats than elsewhere in the city. But the experimenthas not been repeated. 

Hospitals for sick animals are no new thing, but a really comfortablehome for cats is an enterprise in which many a woman who now asksdespondently what she can do in this overcrowded world to earn a living, might find pleasant and profitable. 

A most worthy charity is that of the Animal Rescue League in Boston, which was started by Mrs. Anna Harris Smith in 1899. She put a call inthe newspapers, asking those who were interested in the subject toattend a meeting and form a league for the protection and care of lostor deserted pets. The response was immediate and generous. The AnimalRescue League was formed with several hundred members, and in a shorttime the house at 68 Carver Street was rented, and a man and his wifeput in charge. Here are brought both cats and dogs from all parts ofBoston and the suburbs, where they are sure of kind treatment and care. If they are diseased they are immediately put out of existence by meansof the lethal chamber; otherwise they are kept for a few days in orderthat they may be claimed by their owners if lost, or have homes foundfor them whenever it is possible. During the first year over twothousand cats were cared for, and several hundred dogs. This home ismaintained by voluntary contributions and by the annual dues ofsubscribers. These are one dollar a year for associate members and fivedollars for active members. It is an excellent charity, and one that maywell be emulated in other cities. 

There are several cat asylums and refuges in the Far West, and certainlya few more such institutions as the Sheltering Home at Brighton, Mass. , or the Morris Refuge would be a credit to a country. How better than byapplying it to our cats can we demonstrate the truth of Solomon's maxim, "A merciful man is merciful to his beast"?

CHAPTER XII

CONCERNING THE ORIGIN OF CATS

If any of my readers hunger and thirst for information concerning thedescent of the cat through marsupial ancestors and mesozoic mammals tothe generalized placental or monodelphous carnivora of to-day, let themconsult St. George Mivart, who gives altogether the most comprehensiveand exhaustive scientific study to the cat ever published, and whosebook on the cat is an excellent work for the earnest beginner in thestudy of biological science. He says no more complete example can befound of a perfectly organized living being than that supplied by thehighest mammalian family--_Felidae_. 

"On the whole, " he sums up, "it seems probable that the mammalia, andtherefore the cat, descends from some highly developed, somewhatreptile-like batrachian of which no trace has been found. "

Away back in the eighth century of the Hegira, an Arab naturalist givesthis account of the creation of the cat: "When, as the Arab relates, Noah made a couple of each animal to enter the ark, his companions andfamily asked, 'What security can you give us and the other animals, solong as the lion dwells with us on this narrow vessel?' Then Noah betookhimself to prayer, and entreated the Lord God. Immediately fever camedown from heaven and seized upon the king of beasts. " This was theorigin of fever. But constituents in Noah's time, as now, wereungrateful; and no sooner was the lion disposed of, than the mouse wasdiscovered to be an object of suspicion. They complained that therewould be no safety for provisions or clothing. "And so Noah renewed hissupplication to the Most High, the lion sneezed, and a cat ran out ofhis nostrils. From that time the mouse has been timid and has hidden inholes. "

In the Egyptian gallery of the British Museum there is an excellentpainting of a tabby cat assisting a man to capture birds. Hieroglyphicinscriptions as far back as 1684 B. C. Mention the cat, and there is atLeyden a tablet of the eighteenth or nineteenth dynasty with a catseated under a chair. A temple at Beni-Hassan is dedicated to Pasht orBubastis, the goddess of cats, which is as old as Thothmes IV of theeighteenth dynasty, 1500 B. C. ; and the cat appears in written rituals ofthat dynasty. Herodotus tells of the almost superstitious reverencewhich dwellers along the Nile felt for the cat, and gravely states thatwhen one died a natural death in any house, the inmates shaved theireyebrows as a token of grief; also, that in case of a fire the firstthing they saved was the household cat. Fortunate pussies!

It is thought that cats were introduced into Greece from Egypt, althoughProfessor Rolleston, of Cambridge University, believes the Grecian petcat to have been the white-breasted marten. Yet why should he? Is not asoft, white-breasted maltese or tabby as attractive? The idea that catswere domesticated in Western Europe by the Crusaders is thought to beerroneous; but pet cats were often found in nunneries in the MiddleAges, and Pope Gregory the Great, toward the end of the sixth century, had a pet cat of which he was very fond. 

An old writer says, "A favorite cat sometimes accompanied the Egyptianson these occasions [of sport], and the artist of that day intends toshow us by the exactness with which he represents her seizing her prey, that cats were trained to hunt and carry water-fowl. " There are oldEgyptian paintings representing sporting scenes along the Nile, wherethe cats plunge into the water of the marshes to retrieve and carrygame; while plenty of mural paintings show them sitting under thearm-chair of the mistress of the house. Modern naturalists, however, claim a radical difference between those old Egyptian retrieving catsand our water-hating pussies. There are no records of cats between thatperiod in Egypt, about 1630 B. C. , and 260 B. C. , when they seem to havebecome acclimated in Greece and Rome. There is in the Bordeaux Museum anancient picture of a young girl holding a cat, on a tomb of theGallo-Roman Epoch, and cats appeared in the heraldry of that date; butwriters of those ages speak rather slightingly of them. Then forcenturies the cat was looked upon as a diabolic creature, fit companyfor witches. 

"Why, " says Balthazar Bekker in the seventeenth century, "is a catalways found among the belongings of witches, when according to theSacred Book, and Apocalypse in particular, it is the dog, not a felineanimal, that consorts with the sorcerers?"

In Russia even yet the common people believe that black cats becomedevils at the end of seven years, and in many parts of Southern Europethey are still supposed to be serving apprenticeship as witches. InSicily the peasants are sure that if a black cat lives with sevenmasters, the soul of the seventh will surely accompany him back to thedominion of Hades. In Brittany there is a dreadful tale of cats thatdance with unholy glee around the crucifix while their King is being putto death. Cats figure in Norwegian folk-lore, too, as witches andpicturesque incumbents of ghost-haunted houses and nocturnal revels. Andeven to-day there is a legend in Westminster to the effect that thedissipated cats of that region indulge in a most disreputable revel insome country house, and that is why they look so forlorn and altogetherundone by daylight. 

A canon enacted in England in 1127 forbade any abbess or nun to use morecostly fur than that of lambs or cats, and it is proved that cat-fur wasat that time commonly used for trimming dresses. The cat was, probablyfor that reason, an object of chase in royal forests, and a license isstill in existence from Richard II to the Abbot of Peterborough, anddated 1239, granting liberty to hunt cats. This was probably the wildcat, however, which was not the same as the domestic. [1]

[Footnote 1:

These are among the laws supposedly enacted by Hoel Dha (Howell theGood) sometime between 915 and 948 A. D. 

The Vendotian Code XI. 

The worth of a cat and her teithi (qualities) this is:--

1st. The worth of a kitten from the night it is kittened until it shallopen its eyes, is one penny. 

2d. And from that time until it shall kill mice, two pence. 

3d. And after it shall kill mice, four legal pence; and so it shallalways remain. 

4th. Her teithe are to see, to hear, to kill mice, and to have her claws. 

This is the "Dimentian Code. " XXXII. Of Cats. 

1st. The worth of a cat that is killed or stolen. Its head to be putdownward upon a clean, even floor, with its tail lifted upward and thussuspended, whilst wheat is poured about it until the top of its tail becovered and that is to be its worth. If the corn cannot be had, then amilch sheep with a lamb and its wool is its value, if it be a cat thatguards the king's barn. 

2d. The worth of a common cat is four legal pence. 

3d. The teithi of a cat, and of every animal upon the milk of whichpeople do not feed, is the third part of its worth or the worth of itslitter. 

4th. Whosoever shall sell a cat (cath) is to answer that she devour nother kittens, and that she have ears, teeth, eyes, and nails, and be agood mouser. 

The "Gwentian Code" begins in the same way, but says:--

3d. That it be perfect of ear, perfect of eye, perfect of teeth, perfectof tail, perfect of claw, and without marks of fire. And if the cat fallshort in any of these particulars, a third of her price had to berefunded. As to the fire, in case her fur had been singed the rats coulddetect her by the odor, and her qualities as a mouser were thus injured. And then it goes on to say:--

4th. That the teithi and the legal worth of a cat are coequal. 

5th. A pound is the worth of a pet animal of the king. 

6th. The pet animal of a breyer (brewer) is six score pence in value. 

7th. The pet animal of a taoog is a curt penny in value. 

In the 39th chapter, 53d section, we find that "there are three animalswhose tails, eyes, and lives are of the same value--a calf, a filly forcommon work, and a cat, except the cat which shall watch the king'sbarn, " in which case she was more valuable. 

Another old Welsh law says: "Three animals reach their worth in a year:a sheep, a cat, and a cur. This is a complement of the legal hamlet;nine buildings, one plough, one kiln, one churn, and one cat, one cock, one bull, and one herdsman. "

In order that there might be no mistake in regard to the cat, a roughsketch of Puss is given in the Mss. Of the laws. ]

That cats, even in the Middle Ages, were thought much more highly of inGreat Britain than on the Continent is proved by the fact that the lawsthere imposed a heavy fine on cat-killers, the fine being as much wheatas would serve to bury the cat when he was held up by the tip of thetail with his nose on the ground. So that pet cats stood a fairly goodchance in those days. 

One of the good things remembered of Louis XIII is that he interceded asDauphin with Henri IV for the lives of the cats about to be burned atthe festival on St. John's Day. 

Nowadays, there is a current superstition that a black cat brings goodluck to a house; but in the Middle Ages they believed that the devilborrowed the form of a black cat when he wanted to torment or getcontrol of his victims. There are plenty of old traditions about catshaving spoken to human beings, and been kicked, or struck, or burned bythem in return; and invariably, these tales tell us, those who are sobespoken meet some one the next day with plain marks of the injury theyhad inflicted on the froward cat, --which was sure evidence of witcheryand sorcery. Doubtless full many a human being has been put to death, intimes past, on no stronger evidence of being a witch. Humanity did notcome to the rescue of the cat and bring her out from the shadow ofignominy that hung over her in mediaeval times until 1618, when aninterdict was issued in Flanders prohibiting the festive ceremony ofthrowing cats from the high tower of Ypres on Wednesdays of the secondweek in Lent. And from that time Pussy's fortunes began to look up. 

To-day, travellers on the edge of the Pyrenees know a little old man, Martre Tolosan, who makes and sells replicas of the original models ofcats found among the Roman remains at a small town near Toulouse. Theseare made in blue and white earthenware and each one is numbered. Mine, bought by a friend in 1895, is marked 5000. They are not exact models ofour cats of to-day, to be sure, but they express all the snug contentand inscrutable calm of our modern pets. 

The Chinese reproduce cats in their ceramics in white, turquoise blue, and old violet. One that once belonged to Madame de Mazarin sold foreight hundred livres. In Japan, cats are reproduced in common ware, daubed with paint, but the Chinese make them of finer ware, enamellingthe commoner kinds of porcelain and using the cat in conventional formsas flower-vases and lamps. 

CHAPTER XIII

CONCERNING VARIETIES OF CATS

Few people realize how many kinds of cats there are. The fashionableworld begins to discuss cats technically and understand their variouspoints of excellence. The "lord mayor's chain, " the "Dutch rabbitmarkings, " and similar features are understood by more cat fanciers thana few years ago; but, until within that time, it is doubtful if thenumber of people who knew the difference between the Angora and thePersian in this country amounted to a hundred. It is but a few yearssince the craze for the Angora cat started. These cats have beenfashionable pets in England for some years back, and now America beginsto understand their value and the principles of breeding them. Today, there are as handsome, well-bred animals in the United States as can befound abroad. The demand for high-bred animals with a pedigree isgreatly increasing, and society people are beginning to understand thefine points of the thoroughbred. 

The Angora cat, as its name indicates, comes from Angora in WesternAsia, the province that is celebrated for its goats with long hair offine quality. In fact, the hair under the Angora cat's body oftenresembles the finest of the Angora goatskins. Angora cats are favoriteswith the Turks and Armenians, and exist in many colors, especially sincethey have been more carefully bred. They vary in form, color, anddisposition, and also in the quality of their hair. The standard callsfor a small head, with not too long a nose, large eyes that shouldharmonize in color with the fur, small, pointed ears with a tuft of hairat the apex, and a very full, fluffy mane around the neck. This mane isknown as the "lord mayor's chain. " The body is longer than that of theordinary cat in proportion to its size, and is extremely graceful, andcovered with long, silky hair, which is crinkly like that of the Angoragoat. This hair should be as fine as possible, and not woolly. The legsare of a moderate length, but look short on account of the length ofhair on the body. Little tufts of hair growing between the toes indicatehigh breeding. The Angora cat, in good condition, is one of the mostbeautiful and elegant creatures in the world, and few can resist itscharm. The tail is long and like an ostrich plume. It is usuallycarried, when the cat is in good spirits, straight up, with the endwaving over toward one side. The tail of the Angora serves as abarometer of its bodily and mental condition. If the cat is ill orfrightened, the tail droops, and sometimes trails on the ground; butwhen she is in good spirits, playing about the house or grounds, itwaves like a great plume, and is exceedingly handsome. The suppleness ofthe Angora's tail is also a mark of fine breeding. A highbred Angorawill allow its tail to be doubled or twisted without apparent notice ofthe performance. 

The Angora does not reach its prime until about two years. Before thattime its head and body are not sufficiently developed to give the fullbeauty and grace of the animal. As a rule, the Angora is of gooddisposition, although the females are apt to be exceedingly nervous. They are sociable and docile, although fond of roaming about, especiallyif allowed to run loose. As a rule, they do not possess the keenintelligence of the ordinary short-haired family cat, but their greatbeauty and their cleanly and affectionate habits make them favoriteswith fashionable people. The proper breeding of the Angora cat is aregular science. Of the colors of the Angoras, the blue or maltese is afavorite, and rather common, especially when mixed with white. 

The white Angora is extraordinarily beautiful, and brings a high pricewhen it has blue eyes and all its points are equally good. The orange, or yellow, and the black with amber eyes are also prize winners. Thereare the tigers also, the brown tabby, and the orange and white. Mixedcolors are more common than solid ones; the tortoise-shell cat of threecolors and well mottled being considered particularly desirable. 

The Persian cat differs from the Angora in the quality of its fur, although the ordinary observer sees little difference between them. Allthe long-haired cats originated from the Indian Bengalese, Thibetan, and other wild cats of Asia and Russia. The Persian cat of very greatvalue is all black, with a very fluffy frill, or lord mayor's chain, andorange eyes. Next to him comes a light slate or blue Persian, withyellow eyes. The fur of the Persian cat is much more woolly than that ofthe Angora, and sometimes in hot weather mats badly. The differencebetween a Persian and an Angora can usually be told by an amateur, bydrawing the tail between the thumb and first finger. The Angora's tailcomes out thin, silky, and narrow, although it immediately "fluffs" up. The Persian's tail does not compress itself readily into a small space. The Persian cat's head is larger, its ears are less pointed, although itshould have the tuft at the end and the long hair inside. It is usuallylarger in body and apparently stronger made, although slender andelegant in appearance, with small bones and graceful in movement. Thecolors vary, as with the Angora, except that the tortoise-shell and thedark-marked tabby do not so frequently appear. The temper is usuallyless reliable and the intelligence less keen than the Angora. 

The Russian long-haired pet is much less common even than the Persianand Angora. It is fond of cold weather, and its fur is denser, indicating that it has been used to colder regions. Many of the catsthat we see are crosses of Angora and Persian, or Angora and Russian, sothat it is extremely difficult for the amateur to know a thoroughbredcat which has not been mixed with other varieties. 

There is also a fine short-haired cat coming from Russia, usuallyself-colored. Mrs. Frederick Monroe, of Chicago, owns a very handsomeblue and white one. 

In Pegu, Siam, and Burmah, there is a race of cats known as the Malaycat, with tails only half the ordinary length and often contorted into asort of a knot that cannot be straightened, after the fashion of the pugdog or ordinary pig. 

There is another cat known as the Mombas, a native of the west coast ofAfrica and covered with stiff, bristling hair. Paraguay cats are onlyone-quarter as big as our ordinary cat, and are found along the westerncoast of South America, even as far north as Mexico. 

The royal cat of Siam is a short-haired cat, yet widely different fromother short-haired varieties. They are extremely pretty, with blue oramber-colored eyes by day which grow brilliant at night. These cats alsofrequently have the kink in the tail, and sometimes a strong animalodor, although this is not disagreeable. The head is rather longer thanthe ordinary cat's, tapering off sharply toward the muzzle, the foreheadflat and receding, and the eyes more slanting toward the nose than theAmerican cat's. The form should be slender, graceful, and delicatelymade; the body long; the tail very thin and rather short; the legs shortand slender, and the feet oval. The body is of a bright, uniform color, and the legs, feet, and tail are usually black. 

The Manx cat is considered by many people as a natural curiosity. Itdiffers from the ordinary domestic cat but little, except in the absenceof a tail, or even an apology for one. The hind legs are thicker andrather longer than the ordinary cat's, and it runs more like a hare. Itis not a graceful object when seen from behind, but it is anaffectionate, home-loving creature with considerable intelligence. TheManx cat came from the Isle of Man originally, and is a distinct breed. So-called Manx cats have tails from one to a few inches long, but theseare crosses of the Manx and the ordinary cat. In the Crimea is foundanother kind of cat which has no tail. The cats known as the "celebratedorange cats of Venice, " are probably descendants of the old Egyptiancat, and are of varying shades of yellow, sometimes deepening into asandy color which is almost red. There are obscure stripes on the body, which become more distinct on the limbs. The tail is more or less ringedtoward its termination. 

There has been a newspaper paragraph floating about stating that a prizeof several thousand dollars had been offered in England for a maletortoise-shell cat. This is probably not true, as a Mr. Smith exhibiteda tortoise-shell he-cat at the Crystal Palace Show of 1871. Severaltortoise-shell and white toms have been exhibited since, and one ofthese has taken nine first prizes at the Crystal Palace Show; but thetortoise-shell he-cat is extremely rare. The real tortoise-shell is nota striped tiger nor a tabby. It has three colors usually, black, yellow, and red or brown; but these appear in patches rather than stripes. It issaid that the tortoise-shell cat is common in Egypt and the south ofEurope. It comes from a different stock than the ordinary short-hairedcat, the texture of the hair being different, as well as the color. Thetortoise-shell and white cat is much more common, and is the product ofa cross between a tortoise shell and a solid color cat. In this case thehair is usually coarser and the tail thicker than in the ordinary cat. 

Among cat fanciers there is a distinctive variety known as thetortoise-shell tabby. As the tabby cat is one of the varieties ofstriped or spotted cats having markings, broad or narrow, of bands ofblack on a dark tan or gray ground, the tortoise-shell cat would haveboth stripes and patches of color. 

Of the tabbies, there are brown tabbies, silver tabbies, and redtabbies. It is said that the red tabby she-cat is as scarce as thetortoise-shell he-cat. The ordinary observer considers the brown tabbywith white markings as much the handsomest of the tabbies. But fanciersand judges do not agree with him, the cats having narrow bands and spotsbeing the ones to take prizes. The word "tabby, " according to HarrisonWeir, was derived from a kind of taffeta or ribbed silk which used to becalled tabby silk. Other authorities state that tabby cats got theirname from Atab, a street in Bagdad; but as this street was famous forits watered silks perhaps the same reason holds. The tortoise-shell usedto be called, in England, the Calimanco. In America, it is sometimescalled the calico cat. 

The red tabby is of a deep reddish or yellow brown, with a well-ringedtail, orange or yellow eyes, and pink cushions to the feet. The browntabby is orange brown, with black lips, brown whiskers, black feet, black pads, long tail, greenish orange eyes, and red nose bordered withblack. The spotted tabby must have no bands at all. It must be brown, red, or yellow, with black spots. In the brown tabby the feet and padsare black; in the yellow and red, the feet and pads are pink. Thespotted cat sometimes resembles a leopard, while the banded tabbyresembles more the tiger. Some of the spotted tabbies are extremelyhandsome, and came originally from a cross between the ordinary cat andthe wild cat. 

"Self-colored cats" are entirely of one color, which may vary indifferent cats, but must never be mixed in the same cat, nor even shadedinto a lighter tone on the animal; and whether this color be black, blue, red, or yellow, the self-colored cat should have a rich deep tint. Of course the short-haired white cat is the handsomest of all. One ofthe peculiarities of this white cat is that it is apt to be deaf. Themost valuable white cats, whether long or short haired, have blue eyes. Sometimes they have one blue eye and one green or yellow, which gives acomical effect, and detracts from their value. By the way, cross-eyedcats are not unknown. The best white cats have a yellowish white tintinstead of grayish white, as the latter have a coarser quality of fur. 

The jet-black cat is thought by many to be the most desirable. The trueblack cat should have a uniform, intensely black coat, velvety andextremely glossy; the eyes should be round and full, and of a brilliantamber; the nose and pads of the feet should be jet-black, and the taillong and tapering. It is difficult to find a black cat without a whitehair, as usually there are a few under the chin or on the belly. 

The blue cat is the one ordinarily known in this country as the darkmaltese. There is a tradition that it came from the Island of Malta. Many people do not consider it a distinct breed, but think it alight-colored variety of the black cat. It is known sometimes as theArchangel, sometimes as the Russian blue, the Spanish blue, theChartreuse blue, but more commonly in this country as the maltese. Whenit is of a deep bluish color, or of the soft silver-gray maltese withoutstripes, it is extremely handsome. The most desirable are the bluishlilac-colored ones, with soft fur like sealskin. The nose and pads ofthe feet are dark, and the eyes are orange yellow. The maltese and whitecat when well marked is extremely handsome, and there is no prettierkitten than the maltese and white. 

The black and white, yellow and white, blue and white, and in fact, anyself-colored and white cat is a mixture of the other breeds. If wellmarked they are extremely handsome and are usually bright andintelligent. 

The solid gray cat is very rare. It is, in fact, a tabby without theblack stripes or spots. 

In Australia, New Zealand, and New Guinea there used to be no cat of anykind. The Siamese cat has been imported to Australia, and someauthorities claim that the cats known in this country as Australian catsare of Siamese origin. Madagascar is a catless region. 

There is in this country a variety known as the "coon cat, " which ishandsome, especially in the solid black. Its native home is in Maine, and it is thought by many to have originated with the ordinary cat andthe raccoon. It grows somewhat larger than the ordinary cat, with thick, woolly fur and an extremely bushy tail. It is fond of outdoor life, andwhen kept as a pet must be allowed to run out of doors or it is apt tobecome so savage and disagreeable that nothing can be done with it. Whenit is allowed its freedom, however, it becomes affectionate, intelligent, and is usually a handsome cat. 

The term "Dutch rabbit markings" refers to the white markings on the catof two or three colors. Evidently, the cats themselves understand thevalue of Dutch rabbit markings, as one which has them is invariablyproud of them. A cat that has white mittens, for instance, is ofteninordinately vain, and keeps them in the most immaculate state ofcleanliness. 

CHAPTER XIV

CONCERNING CAT LANGUAGE

Montaigne it was who said: "We have some intelligence of their senses:so have also the beasts of ours in much the same measure. They flatterus, menace us, need us, and we them. It is manifestly evident that thereis among them a full and entire communication, and that they understandeach other. "

That this applies to cats is certainly true. Did you ever notice how amother cat talks to her children, and simply by the utterances of hervoice induces them to abandon their play and go with her, sometimes withthe greatest reluctance, to some place that suited her whim--or herwisdom?

Dupont de Nemours, a naturalist of the eighteenth century, made himselfridiculous in the eyes of his compatriots by seeking to penetrate themysteries of animal language. "Those who utter sounds, " he affirmed, "attach significance to them; their fellows do the same, and thosesounds originally inspired by passion and repeated under similarrecurrent circumstances, become the abiding expressions of the passionsthat gave rise to them. "

Fortified by this theory he devoted a couple of years to the study ofcrow language, and made himself ridiculous in the eyes of hisadversaries by attempting to translate a nightingale's song. 

Chateaubriand was much interested in Dupont de Nemours's researches intothe language of cats. "Its claws, " says the latter, "and the power ofclimbing trees which its claws give it, furnish the cat with resourcesof experience and ideas denied the dog. The cat, also, has the advantageof a language which has the same vowels as pronounced by the dog, and with six consonants in addition, _m, n, g, h, v_, and _f_. Consequently the cat has a greater number of words. These two causes, the finer structure of its paws, and the larger scope of oral language, endow the solitary cat with greater cunning and skill as a hunter thanthe dog. "

Abbé Galiani also says: "For centuries cats have been reared, but I donot find they have ever been really studied. I have a male and a femalecat. I have cut them off from all communication with cats outside thehouse, and closely observe their proceedings. During their courtshipthey never once miowed: the miow, therefore, is not the language oflove, but rather the call of the absent. Another positive discovery Ihave made is that the voice of the male is entirely different from thatof the female, as it should be. I am sure there are more than twentydifferent inflections in the language of cats, and there is really a'tongue' for they always employ the same sound to express the samething. "

I heartily concur with him, and in addition have often noticed the widedifference between the voice and manner of expression of the gelded catand the ordinary tom. The former has a thin, high voice with muchsmaller vocabulary. As a rule, the gelded cat does not "mew" to makeknown his wants, but employs his voice for conversational purposes. Amother cat "talks" much more than any other, and more when she has smallkittens than at other times. 

Cat language has been reduced to etymology in several tongues. In Arabiatheir speech is called naoua; in Chinese, ming; in Greek, larungizein;in Sanscrit, madj, vid, bid; in German, miauen; in French miauler; andin English, mew or "miaouw. "

Perhaps, if Professor Garner had turned his attention to cat languageinstead of monkeys we would know more about it. But a French professor, Alphonse Léon Grimaldi, of Paris, claims that cats can talk as readilyas human beings, and that he has learned their language so as to be ableto converse with them to some extent. Grimaldi goes even further: he notonly says that he knows such a language, but he states definitely thatthere are about six hundred words in it, that it is more like modernChinese than anything else, and to prove this contention, gives a smallvocabulary. 

Most of us would prefer to accept St. George Mivart's conclusions, thatthe difference between all animals and human beings is that while theyhave some means of communication, or language, we only have the gift ofspeech. Among the eighteen distinct active powers which he attributes tothe cat, he quotes: "16th, powers of pleasurable or painful excitementon the occurrence of sense-perceptions with imaginations, _emotions_;" and "17th, a power of expressing feelings by sounds orgestures which may affect other individuals, --_emotionallanguage_. "

Again he says: "The cat has a language of sounds and gestures to expressits feelings and emotions. So have we. But we have further--whichneither the cat, nor the bird, nor the beast has--a language andgestures to express our thoughts. " The sum of his conclusions seems tobe that while the cat has a most highly developed nervous system, andmuch of what is known as "animal intelligence, " it is not a humanintelligence--not consciousness, but "con-sentience. "

Elsewhere St. George Mivart doubts if a cat distinguishes odors as such. Perhaps a cat starts for the kitchen the instant he smells meat becauseof the mental association of the scent with the gratification of hunger;but why, pray tell, do some cats evince such delight in delicateperfumes? Our own Pomp the First, for instance, had a most demonstrativefondness for violets, and liked the scent of all flowers. One winter Iused to bring home a bunch of Parma or Russian violets every day or two, and put them in a small glass bowl of water. It soon became necessary toput them on the highest shelf in the room, and even then Pompey wouldfind them. Often have I placed them on the piano, and a few minuteslater seen him enter the room, lift his nose, give a few sniffs, andthen go straight to the piano, bury his nose in the violets, and hold itthere in perfect ecstacy. And usually, wherever they were placed, thebunch was found the next morning on the floor, where Pompey had carriedthe violets, and holding them between his paws for a time, had surfeitedhimself with their delicious fragrance. 

Still, I am not prepared to say that Pompey had any word for violets, orfor anything else that ministered to his delight. It was enough for himto be happy; and he had better ways of expressing it. 

Cats do have the power of making people understand what they want done, but so far as my knowledge of them goes, some of the most intelligentones "talk" the least. Thomas Erastus, whose intelligence sometimesamounts to a knowledge that seems almost uncanny, seldom utters a sound. 

There is--or was--a black cat belonging to the city jail of aCalifornian town, named "Inspector Byrnes, " because of his remarkableassistance to the police force. When, one night, a prisoner in the jailhad stuffed the cracks to his cell with straw, and turned on the gas inan attempt to commit suicide, "Inspector Byrnes" hurried off andnotified the night keeper that something was wrong, and induced him togo to the cell in time to save the prisoner's life. He once notified thepolice when a fire broke out on the premises, and at another time madesuch a fuss that they followed him--to discover a woman trying to hangherself. Again, some of the prisoners plotted to escape, and the catcrawled through the hole they had filed and called the warden'sattention to it. In fact, there was no doubt that "Inspector Byrnes"considered himself assistant warden at the jail, and he did not wastemuch time in talk either. 

The Pretty Lady had ways of her own to make us know when things werewrong in the household, although she used to utter a great many sounds, either of pleasure or perturbation, which we came to understand. Iremember one morning, when my sister was ill upstairs, that I hadbreakfasted and sat down to read my morning's mail, when the Pretty Ladycame, uttering sounds that denoted dissatisfaction with matterssomewhere. I was busy, and at first paid no attention to her; but shegrew more persistent, so that I finally laid down my letters and asked:"What is it, Puss? Haven't you had breakfast enough?" I went out to thekitchen, and she followed, all the time protesting articulately. Shewould not touch the meat I offered, but evidently wanted somethingentirely different. Just then my sister came down and said:--

"I wish you would go up and see H. She is suffering terribly, and Idon't know what to do for her. "

At that the Pretty Lady led the way into the hall and up the stairs, pausing at every third step to make sure I was following, and leading mestraight to my sister. Then she settled herself calmly on the foot-boardand closed her eyes, as though the whole affair was no concern of hers. Afterward, my sister said that when the pain became almost unendurable, so that she tossed about and groaned, the Pretty Lady came close to herface and talked to her, just as she did to her kittens when they were indistress, showing plainly that she sympathized with and would help her. When she found it impossible to do this, she hurried down to me. Andthen having got me actually up to my sister's bedside, she threw off herown burden of anxiety and settled into her usual calm content. 

"My Goliath is at the helm now, " she expressed by her attitude, "and theworld is sure to go right a little longer while I take a nap. "