Chapter I: WAS a handsome, discreet, middle-aged, respectable, responsible,

domesticated tabby cat. I was humble. I knew my place, and kept it. My place was the place nearest the fire in winter, or close to the sunny window in summer. There was nothing to trouble me--not so much as a fly in the cream, or an error in the leaving of the cat's meat, until some thoughtless person gave my master the white Persian cat.

She was very beautiful in her soft, foolish, namby-pamby, blue-eyed way. Of course, she did not understand English, and when they called "Puss, puss," she only ran under the sofa, for she thought they were teasing her. She was mistress only of two languages--Persian and cat-talk.

My master did not think of this. He called her "Puss"; he called her "Pussy"; he called her "Tittums" and "Pussy then"; and a thousand endearments that had formerly been lavished on me were vainly showered on this unresponsive stranger. But when he found she was cold to all of them, my master sighed.

"Poor thing!" he said; "she is deaf."

I sat by the bright fender, and washed my face, and sleeked my pretty paws, and looked on. My master gave up taking very much notice of the new cat. But I had a fear that he might learn Persian or cat-talk, and make friends with her; so I resolved that the best thing for me would be a complete change in the Persian's behaviour--such a change as should make it impossible for her ever to be friends with him again; so I said to her:

"You wonder that our master looks coldly at you. Perhaps you don't know that in England a white cat is supposed to mew twenty times longer and to purr twenty times louder than a cat of any other colour?"

"Oh, thank you so much for telling me," she said gratefully. "I didn't know. As it happens, I have a very good voice."

And the next time she wanted her milk, she mewed in a voice you could have heard twenty miles away. Poor master was so astonished that he nearly dropped the saucer. When she had finished the milk, she jumped upon his knee, and he began to stroke her. She nearly gave herself a fit in her efforts to purr loud enough to please him. At first he was pleased, but when the purring got louder and louder, the poor man put his hands to his ears and said, "Oh dear! oh dear! this is worse than a whole hive of bees."

Still he put her down gently, and I congratulated her on having done so well. She did better. She was an affectionate person, though foolish, and in her anxiety to do what was expected of a cat of her colour in England, she practised day and night.

Her purr was already the loudest I have heard from any cat, but she fancied she could improve her mewing; and she mewed in the garden, she mewed in the house, she mewed at meals, she mewed at prayers, she mewed when she was hungry to show that she wanted food, and she mewed when she had had it to show her gratitude.

"Poor thing," said the master to a friend who had come to see him, "she is so deaf she can't hear the noise she makes."

Of course, I understood what he said, but she hadn't yet picked up a word of English; and if the master _had_ begun to learn Persian, I don't suppose he had got much beyond the alphabet.

The Persian's mew was rather feebler that day, because she had a cold.

"I don't think it's so bad," said his friend. "If you really wanted to get rid of her, she is very handsome; she would take a prize anywhere."

"She is yours," said the master instantly; and the strange gentleman took her away in a basket.

That evening it was I who sat on my master's knee--I who superintended the writing of his letters on the green-covered writing table--I who had all the milk that was left over from his tea.

In a few days he had a letter. I read it when he laid it down; and if you don't believe cats can read, I can only say that it is just as easy to read a letter like the master's as it is to write a story like this. The letter begged my master to take back the fair Persian.

"Her howls," the letter went on, "become worse and worse. The poor creature is, as you say, too deaf to be tolerated."

My master wrote back instantly to say that he would rather be condemned to keep a dog than have the fair Persian within his doors again.

Then by return of post came a pitiful letter, begging for help and mercy, and the friend came again to tea. I trembled lest my foreign rival should come back to live with me. But she didn't. The next morning my master took me on his knee, and, stroking me gently, said--

"Ah, Tabbykins! no more Persians for us. I have sent her to my deaf aunt. She will be delighted with her--a most handsome present--and as they are both deaf, the fair Persian's shrieks will hurt nobody.

"But I will have no more prize cats," he said, pouring out some cream for me in his own saucer. "You know how to behave; I will never have any cat but you."

I do, and he never has.

A Powerful Friend

MY mother was the best of cats. She washed us kittens all over every morning, and at odd times during the day she would wash little bits of us, say an ear, or a paw, or a tail-tip, and she was very anxious about our education. I am afraid I gave her a great deal of trouble, for I was rather stout and heavy, and did not take a very active or graceful part in the exercises which she thought good for us.

Our gymnasium was the kitchen hearth-rug. There was always a good fire in the grate, and it seemed to me so much better to go to sleep in front of it than to run round after my own tail, or even my mother's, though, of course, that was a great honour.

As for running after the reel of cotton when the cook dropped it, or playing with the tassel of the blind-cord, or pretending that there were mice inside the paper bag which I knew to be empty, I confess that I had no heart or imagination for these diversions.

"Of course, you know best, mother," I used to say; "but it does seem to me a dreadful waste of time. We might be much better employed."

"How better employed?" asked my mother severely.

"Why," I answered, "in eating or sleeping."

At first my mother used to box my ears, and insist on my learning such little accomplishments as she thought necessary for my station in life.

"You see," she would say, "all this playing with tails and reels and balls of worsted is a preparation for the real business of life."

"What is that?" asked my sister.

"Mouse-catching," said my mother very earnestly.

"There are no mice here," I said, stretching myself.

"No, but you will not always be here; and if you practise the little tricks I show you now with the ball of worsted and the tips of our tails, then, when the great hour comes, and a career is open to you, and you see before you the glorious prize--the MOUSE--you will be quick enough and clever enough to satisfy the highest needs of your nature."

"And supposing we don't play with our tails and the balls of worsted?" I said.

"Then," said my mother bitterly, "you may as well lie down for the mice to, run over you."

Thus at first she used to try to show me how foolish it was to think of nothing but eating and sleeping; but after a while she turned all her attention to teaching my brother and sister, and they were apt pupils. They despised nothing small enough to be moved by their paws, which could give them an opportunity of practising. They did not mind making themselves ridiculous--a thing which has been always impossible with me. I have seen Tabby, my sister, in the garden, playing with dead leaves, as excited and pleased as though they had been the birds which she foolishly pretended that they were.

I thought her very silly then, but I lived to wish that I had taken half as much trouble with my lessons as she did with hers. My mother was very pleased with her, especially after she caught the starlings. This was a piece of cleverness which my sister invented and carried through entirely out of her own head. She made friends with one of the cows at the farm near us, and used to go into the cowhouse and jump on the cow's back. Then when the cow was sent out into the field to get her grassy breakfast, my sister used to go with her, riding on her back.

Now birds are always very much on the look-out for cats, and, if they can help it, never allow one of us to come within half-a-dozen yards of them without taking to those silly wings of theirs. I never could see why birds should have wings--so unnecessary.

But birds are not afraid of cows, for cows are very poor sportsmen, and never care to kill and eat anything.

Now the back of a cow is the last place where you would think of looking for a cat; so when the starlings saw the cow coming, they didn't think it worth while to use their wings, and when the cow was quite close to the birds--beautiful, fat, delightful birds--- my sister used to pick out with her eye the fattest starling, and then leap suddenly from the cow's back on to her prey. She never missed.

"I have never known," said my poor mother with tears of pride in her green eyes--"I have never known a cat do anything so clever."

"It's all your doing, mother dear," said my sister prettily; "if you hadn't taught me so well when I was little, I should never have thought of it." And they kissed each other affectionately.

I showed my claws and growled. My mother shook her tabby head.

"O Buff," she said, "if you had only been willing to learn when you were little, you might have been as clever as your sister, instead of being the great anxiety you are to me."

"And why am I an anxiety?" I said, ruffling up my fur and my tail, for I was very angry.

"Because you are useless," she said, "and not particularly handsome; and when a cat is useless and not particularly handsome, they sometimes----"

"What?" I said, turning pale to the ends of my ears.

"They sometimes drown it, Buff," she said in a whisper, and turned away to hide her feelings.

Judge of my own next day when they came into the kitchen and took me up and put me into a basket. I knew all about drowning. These tales of horror are told at twilight time in all cat nurseries, and I knew that if three large stones were put into the basket with me, I might consider my fate sealed.

It was very uncomfortable in the basket. They carried me upside-down part of the way, and it was draughty and hard; but, so far, there were no stones. When they took off the lid of the basket, I found myself under the shade of a huge moving mountain, that seemed about to fall and crush me. It was an elephant.

I found that the people where my mother lived had given me to the cook, who had given me to her cousin, who was engaged to be married to a young man whose brother-in-law was the elephant's keeper, and so I found myself in the elephant's house.

There was no milk for me--no heads and tails of fish--no scraps of meat--no delicious unforeseen morsels of butter.

The elephant was very kind to me. He had once had a friend exactly like me, he explained, but had unfortunately walked upon him, and now I had come to fill the vacant place in his large heart.

I resolved at once that he should not walk upon me; but in order to insure this, I was compelled to enter upon a more active existence than I had ever known.

When I asked what I was expected to eat, he said--

"Mice, I suppose; or you can have some of my buns if you like. You might like them at first, but you will soon get tired of them."

But I couldn't eat buns. I was never, from a kitten, fond of such things. I got very hungry. Again and again the mice rushed through the straw, and I, heavily, helplessly, in my unpractised way, rushed after them. At first the elephant laughed heartily at my inexpertness; but when he saw how hungry and wretched I was, he said--

"They won't give you any milk, and if they find you don't catch the mice they will take you away from me. Now you are a nice little cat, and I don't want to part with you. We must try and arrange something."

Then the great thought of my life came to me.

"You walked on the other cat," I said.

"What?" he trumpeted in a voice of thunder.

"I beg your pardon," I said hastily; "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings"--and, indeed, I could not have imagined that an elephant would have been so thin-skinned "but a great idea has come to me. Why shouldn't you walk on mice--not too hard, but just so that I could eat them afterwards?"

"Well," said the elephant, showing his long tusks in a smile, "you are not very handsome, and you are not very brisk; but you certainly have brains, my dear."

He dropped his great foot as he spoke. When he lifted it, there lay a mouse. I had an excellent supper; and before the week's end I heard the keeper say, "This cat has certainly done the trick. She has kept the mice down. We must keep her."

They have kept me. They even go so far as to allow me to moisten my mice with milk.

There is no moral to this story, except that you should do as you are told, and learn everything you can while you are young. It is true that I get on very well without having done so, but then you may not have my good luck. It is not every cat who can get an elephant to catch her mice for her.

A Silly Question

"HOW do you come to be white, when all your brothers are tabby, my dear?" Dolly asked her kitten. As she spoke, she took it away from the ball it was playing with, and held it up and looked in its face as Alice did with the Red Queen.

"I'll tell you, if you'll keep it a secret, and not hold me so tight," the kitten answered.

Dolly was not surprised to hear the kitten speak, for she had read her fairy books, as all good children should, and she knew that all creatures answer if one only speaks to them properly. So she held the kitten more comfortably and the tale began.

"You must know, my dear Dolly," the kitten began--and Dolly thought it dreadfully familiar--"you must know that when we were very small we all set out to seek our fortunes."

"Why," interrupted Dolly, "you were all born and brought up in our barn! I used to see you every day."

"Quite so," said the kitten; "we sought our fortune every night, and it turned out to be mice, mostly. Well, one night I was seeking mine, when I came to a hole in the door that I had never noticed before. I crept through it, and found myself in a beautiful large room. It smelt delicious. There was cheese there, and fish, and cream, and mice, and milk. It was the most lovely room you can think of."

"There's no such room----" began Dolly.

"Did I say there was?" asked the kitten. "I only said I found myself there. Well, I stayed there some time. It was the happiest hour of my life. But, as I was washing my face after one of the most delicious herring's heads you ever tasted, I noticed that on nails all round the room were hung skins--and they were cat skins," it added slowly. "Well may you tremble!"

Dolly hadn't trembled. She had only shaken the kitten to make it speak faster.

"Well, I stood there rooted to the ground with horror; and then came a sort of horrible scramble-rush, and a barking and squeaking, and a terrible monster stood before me. It was something like a dog and something like a broom, something like being thrown out of the larder by cook--I can't describe it. It caught me up, and in less than a moment it had hung my tabby skin on a nail behind the door.

"I crept out of that lovely fairyland a cat without a skin. And that's how I came to be white."

"I don't quite see----" began Dolly.

"No? Why, what would your mother do if some one took off your dress, and hung it on a nail where she could not get it?"

"Buy me another, I suppose."

"Exactly. But when my mother took me to the cat-skin shop, they were, unfortunately, quite out of tabby dresses in my size, so I had to have a white one."

"I don't believe a word of it," said Dolly.

"No? Well, I'm sure it's as good a story as you could expect in answer to such a silly question."

"But you were always----"

"Oh, well!" said the kitten, showing its claws, "if you know more about it than I do, of course there's no more to be said. Perhaps you could tell me why your hair is brown?"

"I was born so, I believe," said Dolly gently.

The kitten put its nose in the air.

"You've got no imagination," it said.

"But, Kitty, really and truly, without pretending, you _were_ born white, you know."

"If you know all about it, why did you ask me? At any rate, you can't expect me to remember whether I was born white or not. I was too young to notice such things."

"Now you are in fun," said poor Dolly, bewildered.

The kitten bristled with indignation.

"What! you really don't believe me? I'll never speak to you again," it said. And it never has.

The Selfish Pussy

"YES," said the tortoiseshell cat to the grey one, as she thoughtfully washed her left ear, "I have lived in a great many families. You see, it's not every trade that deserves to have a cat about the place. My first master was a shoemaker, and I lived with him happily enough, until one morning in winter, when I found the wicked man sewing strips of--let me whisper--_cat's fur_ on a pair of lady's slippers!

"I mewed as I saw it, and he, thinking I wanted milk, put down his work to get me some, for he was fond enough of me. I drank the milk, and then I ran away. I could not live with such a man.

"My next home was in a garret, with a half-starved musician who made violins. A violin is a musical instrument that miauls when you touch it just as we cats do, and it was amusing to live with a man who could make things with voices like my own. He was very poor, and often had not enough to eat, but he always got me my cat's-meat; and when there was no fire on, he nursed me to keep me warm. But one day I learned, from the talk of one of his friends (a man as lean as himself) who came to see him, that the strings of the violins were taken from the bodies of dead cats. No wonder the voices were like my brothers' voices, since they were stolen from my brothers' bodies. He might take my own voice some day.

"So next day, after the cat's-meat man had called, I walked quietly out, and never saw that bad violin-maker again.

"I was picked up in the street by a child, who took me home to her mother's house. They were rich folk; they had curtains, and cushions, and couches, and they did very little but nurse me, or sometimes, not wishing to hurt his feelings, the Italian greyhound. But they liked _me_ best, of course. They were a noble family; and I should have been living with them still, but one year, when they went to the seaside, they forgot to provide for my board and lodging, and I had to go into trade again.

"'Milk ahoy! milk ahoy!' I heard that well-known music as I sat lonely on the doorstep of the deserted mansion in the Square. The milkman looked lonely too; so I thought it would be only kind to go home with him. I did. He was a very well-meaning man, but his tastes were low. He took skim milk in his tea, and gave me the same. Of course, after that, I could not stay another hour under his roof.

"I tried two or three other houses, and I could have been happy with a very nice butcher who kept a corner shop, but he kept a dog also, a dog that no cat in her senses would live in the same street with; so I came away--rather hurriedly, I remember--and the dog saw me off. Now I live with a worker in silver, and I have cream every day; and when he makes a cream-jug, and I remember what will be put in it some day, I lick my lips, and think what a happy cat I am to live with such a good man. Where do you live?"

"With a poor widow, in an attic. I never have enough to eat." And, indeed, the grey cat was thin.

"Why do you stay with her?"

"Because I love her," said the grey cat.

"Love!" replied the tortoiseshell cat.

"Nonsense! I never heard of such a thing."

"Poor puss!" said the parrot in the window. The grey cat thought it was speaking to the tortoiseshell, and the tortoiseshell was certain it meant the grey. Which do _you_ think it meant?

Meddlesome Pussy