LIFE I.

LITTLE Slum Kitten was not six weeks old jet, but she was alone in the old junk-yard. Her mother had gone to seek food among the garbage-boxes the night before, and had never returned ; so when the second evening came, she was very hungry. A deep-laid instinct drove her forth from the old cracker-box to seek something to eat. Feeling her way silently among the rubbish, she smelt everything that seemed eatable, but without finding food. At length she reached the wooden steps leading down into Jap Malee’s bird-store underground at the far end of the yard. The door was open a little, and she walked in. A negro sitting idly on a box in a corner watched her curiously. She wandered past some rabbits ; they paid no heed. She came to a wide-barred cage in which was a fox. He crouched low; his eyes glowed. The Kitten wrandered, sniffing, up to the bars, put her head in, sniffed again, then made straight towards the feed-pan, to be seized in a flash by the crouching fox. She gave a frightened “ Mew! ” and the negro also sprang forward, with such sudden vigour that the fox dropped the Kitten and returned to the corner, there to sit blinking his eyes in sullen fear.

The negro pulled the Kitten out. She tottered in a circle a few times, then revived, and a few minutes later, when Jap Malee came back, she was purring in the negro’s lap, apparently none the worse. Jap was not an Oriental: he was a full-blooded Cockney; but his eyes were such little accidental slits aslant in his round, flat face that his first name was forgotten in the highly descriptive title of “ Jap.” He was not especially unkind to the birds and beasts which furnished his living, but he did not want the Slum Kitten. The negro gave her all the food she could eat, and then carried her to a distant block and dropped her in an iron-yard. Here she lived and somehow found food enough to grow till, weeks later, an extended exploration brought her back to her old quarters in the junk-yard, and, glad to be at home, she at once settled down. Kitty was now full grown. She was a striking-looking cat of the tiger type. Her marks were black on a pale grey, and the four beauty spots of white on nose, ears, and tail-tip lent a certain distinction. She was expert now at getting a living, yet she had some days of starvation, and had so far failed in her ambition to catch a sparrow. She was quite alone, but a new force was coming into her life.

She was lying in the sun one September day when a large black cat came walking along the top of a wall in her direction. By his torn ear she recognised him at once as an old enemy. She slunk into her box and hid. He picked his way gingerly, bounded lightly to a shed that was at the end of the yard, and was crossing the roof when a yellow cat rose up. The black tom glared and growled ; so did the yellow tom. Their tails lashed from side to side. Strong throats growled and yowled. They approached with ears laid back, with muscles a-tense.

“ Yow—yow—ow ! ” said the black one.
“Wow—w—w -!” was the slightly deeper answer.
"Ya—wow—wow—wow !” said the black one, edging up an inch nearer.
“ Yow—w—w ! ” was the yellow answer, as the blond cat rose to full height and stepped with vast dignity a whole inch forward.
“ Yow—w ! ” and he went another inch, while his tail went swish—thump—from one side to the other.
“Ya—wow—yow—w! ” screamed the black in a rising tone, and he backed the eighth of an inch as he marked the broad, unshrinking breast before him.
Windows opened all around, human voices were heard, but the cat scene went on.
“Yow—yow—ow ! ” rumbled the yellow peril, his voice deepening as the other’s rose.
“ Yow ! ” and he advanced another step.

Now their noses were but three inches apart; they stood sidewise, both ready to clinch, but each waiting for the other. They glared at each other for three minutes in silence, and like statues, except that each tail-tip was twisting. The yellow began again. “ Yow—ow—ow! ” in deep tone.

“ Ya-a-a-a-a ! ” screamed the black, with intent to strike terror by his yell, but he retreated one-sixteenth of an inch. The yellow walked up a whole long inch ; their whiskers were mixing now; another advance, and their noses almost touched.
" Yo—w—w!” said Yellow, like a deep moan.
"Ya-a-a-a-a! ” screamed Black, but he retreated a thirty-second of an inch, and the yellow warrior closed and clinched like a demon.

Oh, how they rolled and bit and tore — especially the yellow one ! How they pitched and gripped and hugged —but especially the yellow one ! Over and over, sometimes one on top, sometimes the other, but usually the yellow one, and over they rolled till off the roof, amid cheers from all the windows. They lost not a second in that fall into the junk-yard ; they tore and clawed all the way down, but especially the yellow one; and when they struck the ground, still fighting, the one on top was chiefly the yellow one ; and before they separated both had had as much as they wanted, especially the black one ! He scaled the wall, and, bleeding and growling, disappeared, while the news was passed from window to window that Cayley’s " Nig ” had been licked by " Orange Billy.”

Either the yellow cat was a very clever seeker, or else Slum Kitty did not hide very hard, for he discovered her among the boxes; and she made no attempt to get away, probably because she had witnessed the fight. There is nothing like success in warfare to win the female heart, and thereafter the yellow tom and Kitty became very good friends, not sharing each other’s lives or food — cats do not do that much — but recognising each other as entitled to special friendly privileges. When October’s shortening days were on, an event took place in the old cracker-box. If " Orange Billy ” had come, he would have seen five little kittens curled up in the embrace of their mother, the little Slum Kitty. It was a wonderful thing for her. She felt all the elation an animal mother can feel — all the delight — as she tenderly loved them and licked them. She had added a joy to her joyless life, but she had also added a heavy burden. All her strength was taken now to find food. And one day, led by a tempting smell, she wandered into the bird-cellar and into an open cage. Everything was still, there was meat ahead, and she reached forward to seize it; the cage door fell with a snap, and she was a prisoner. That night the negro put an end to the kittens, and was about to do the same with the mother, when her unusual markings attracted the attention of the bird-man, who decided to keep her.

LIFE II.

Jap Malee was as disreputable a little Cockney bantam as ever sold cheap canary birds in a cellar. He was extremely poor, and the negro lived with him because the “ Henglishman ” was willing to share bed and board. Jap was perfectly honest according to his lights, but he had no lights, and there is little doubt that his chief revenue was derived from storing and restoring stolen dogs and cats. The fox and the half-a-dozen canaries were mere blinds. The " Lost and Found ” columns of the papers were the only ones of interest to Jap, but he noticed and saved a clipping about breeding for fur. This was stuck on the wall of his den, and under its influence he set about making an experiment with the Slum Cat. First he soaked her dirty fur with stuff to kill the two or three kinds of creepers she wore, and when it had done its work he washed her thoroughly. Kitty was savagely indignant, but a warm and happy glow spread over her as she dried off in a cage near the stove, and her fur began to fluff out with wonderful softness and beauty. Jap and his assistant were much pleased. But this was preparatory.

" Nothing is so good for growing fur as plenty of oily food and continued exposure to cold weather,” said the clipping. Winter was at hand, and Jap Malee put Kitty’s cage out in the yard, protected only from the rain and the direct wind, and fed her with all the oil-cake and fish-heads she could eat. In a week the change began to show. She was rapidly getting fat. She had nothing to do but get fat and dress her fur. Her cage was kept clean, and Nature responded to the chill weather and oily food by making Kitty’s coat thicker and glossier every day, so that by Christmas she was an unusually beautiful cat in the fullest and finest of fur, with markings that were at least a rarity. Why not send the Slum Cat to the show now coming on ?

“ ’Twon’t do, ye kneow, Sammy, to henter ’er as a tramp cat, ye kneow,” Jap observed to his help ; " but it kin be arranged to suit the Knickerbockers. No think like a good noime, ye kneow. Ye see now, it had orter be ' Royal ’ something or other — nothink goes with the Knickerbockers like ' Royal ’ any think. Now, ' Royal Dick ’ or ' Royal Sam ’: ’ows that ? But ’owld on : them’s tom names. Oi say, Sammy, wot’s the noime of that island where you were born ? ”

" Analostan Island, sah, was my native vicinity, sah.”

" Oi say, now, that’s good, ye kneow. ' Royal Analostan,’ by Jove ! The onliest pedigreed Royal Analostan in the howle sheow, ye kneow. Ain’t that capital ? ” and they mingled their cackles. " But we’ll ’ave to ’ave a pedigree, ye kneow ” ; so a very long fake pedigree on the recognised lines was prepared. One afternoon Sam, in a borrowed silk hat, delivered the Cat and the pedigree at the show door. He had been a barber, and he could put on more pomp in five minutes than Jap Malee could have displayed in a lifetime, and this, doubtless, was one reason for the respectful reception awarded the Royal Analostan at the cat show. Jap had all a Cockney’s reverence for the upper class. He was proud to be an exhibitor, but when, on the opening day, he went to the door, he was overpowered to see the array of carriages and silk hats. The gateman looked at him sharply, but passed him on his ticket, doubtless taking him for a stable-boy to some exhibitor. The hall had velvet carpets before the long rows of cages. Jap was sneaking down the side row, glancing at the cats of all kinds, noting the blue ribbons and the reds, glancing about, but not daring to ask for his own exhibit, inwardly “Frequent wallowings in the garbage-pail.” trembling to think what the gorgeous gathering of fashion would say if they discovered the trick he was playing on them. But he saw no sign of Slum Kitty. In the middle of the centre aisle were the high-class cats. A great throng was there. The passage was roped, and two policemen were there to keep the crowd moving. Jap wriggled in among them : he was too short to see over, but he gathered from the remarks that the gem of the show was there.

“ Oh, isn’t she a beauty ! ” said one tall woman. “ Ah ! what distinction ! ” was the reply. “ One cannot mistake the air that comes only from ages of the most refined surroundings.” “ How I should like to own that superb creature ! ”

Jap pushed near enough to get a glimpse of the cage and read a placard which announced that “ The Blue Ribbon and Gold Medal of the Knickerbocker High Society Oat and Pet Show had been awarded to the thoroughbred pedigreed Royal Analostan, imported and exhibited by J. Malee, Esquire, the well-known fancier. Not for sale.” Jap caught his breath ; he stared—yes, surely, there, high in a gilded cage on velvet cushions, with two policemen for guards, her fur bright black and pale grey, her bluish eyes slightly closed, was his Slum Kitty, looking the picture of a cat that was bored to death. Jap Malee lingered around that cage for hours, drinking a draught of glory such as he had never before known. But he saw that it would be wise for him to remain unknown; his “ butler ” must do all the business.

It was Slum Kitty who made that show a success. Each day her value went up in the owner’s eye. He did not know what prices had been given for cats, and thought that he was touching a record pitch when his “ butler ” gave the director authority to sell the cat for $100. This is how it came about that the Slum Cat found herself transferred to a Fifth Avenue mansion. She showed a most unaccountable wildness as well as other peculiarities. Her retreat from the lap-dog to the centre of the dinner-table was understood to express a deep-rooted though mistaken idea of avoiding a defiling touch. The patrician way in which she would get the cover off a milk-can was especially applauded, while her frequent wallowings in the garbage-pail were understood to be the manifestation of a little pardonable high-born eccentricity. She was fed and pampered, shown and praised, but she was not happy. She clawed at that blue ribbon around her neck till she got it off ; she jumped against the plate-glass because that seemed the road to outside, and she would sit and gaze out on the roofs and back yards at the other side of the window, and wish she could be among them for a change.

She was strictly watched — was never allowed outside — so that all the happy garbage-can moments occurred while these receptacles of joy were indoors. But one night in March, as they were being set out a-row for the early scavenger, the Royal Analostan saw her chance, slipped out of the door, and was lost to view. Of course there was a grand stir; but Pussy neither knew nor cared anything about that. Her one thought was to go home. A raw east wind had been rising, and now it came to her with a particularly friendly message. Man would have called it an unpleasant smell of the docks, but to Pussy it was a welcome message from her own country. She trotted on down the long street due east, threading the rails of front gardens, stopping like a statue for an instant, or crossing the street in search of the darkest side. She came at length to the docks and to the water, but the place was strange. She could go north or south; something turned her southward, and dodging among docks and dogs, carts and cats, crooked arms of the bay and straight board fences, she got in an hour or two into familiar scenes and smells, and before the sun came up she crawled back, weary and footsore, through the same old hole in the same old fence, and over a wall into her junk-yard back of the bird-cellar—yes, back into the very cracker-box where she was born.

After a long rest she came quietly down from the cracker-box towards the steps leading to the cellar, and engaged in her old-time pursuit of seeking for eatables. The door opened, and there stood the negro. He shouted to the bird-man inside —

Jap came in time to see the cat jumping the wall. The Royal Analostan had been a windfall for him ; had been the means of adding many comforts to the cellar and several prisoners to the cages. It was now of the utmost importance to recapture her Majesty. Stale fish-heads and other infallible lures were put out till Pussy was induced to chew at a large fish-head in a box-trap. The negro in watching pulled the string that dropped the lid, and a minute later the Analostan was again in a cage in the cellar. Meanwhile Jap had been watching the " Lost and Found ” column. There it was : " Twenty-five dollars reward,” etc. That night Mr. Malee’s “butler” called at the Fifth Avenue mansion with the missing cat.

“ Mr. Malee’s compliments, sah.” Of course, Mr. Malee could not be rewarded, but the “ butler ” was evidently open to any offer.

Kitty was guarded carefully after that, but so far from being disgusted with the old life of starving and glad of her care, she became wilder and more dissatisfied. The spring was on in full power now, and the Fifth Avenue family were thinking of their country residence. They packed up, closed house, and moved off to the summer home some fifty miles away ; and Pussy, in a basket, went with them. The basket was put on the back seat of a carriage. New sounds and passing smells were entered and left. Then a roaring of many feet, more swinging of the basket, then some clicks, some bangs, a long, shrill whistle, and door-bells of a very big front door, a rumbling, a whizzing, an unpleasant smell ; then there was a succession of jolts, roars, jars, stops, clicks, clacks, smells, jumps, shakes, more smells, more shakes, big shakes, little shakes, gases, smokes, screeches, door-bells, tremblings, roars, thunders, and some new smells, raps, taps, heavings, rumbling, and more smells. When at last it all stopped, the sun came twinkling through the basket lid. The Royal Cat was lifted into another carriage, and they turned aside from their past course. Very soon the carriage swerved, the noises of its wheels were grittings and rattlings, a new and horrible sound was added—the barking of dogs, big and little, and dreadfully close. The basket was lifted, and Slum Kitty had reached her country home. Everyone was officiously kind. All wanted to please the Royal Cat, but, somehow, none of them did, except possibly the big, fat cook that Kitty discovered on wandering into the kitchen. That greasy woman smelt more like a slum than anything she had met for months, and the Royal Analostan was proportionately attracted. The cook, when she learned that fears were entertained about the cat’s staying, said : “ Shure she’d ’tind to thot; wans a cat licks her futs, shure she’s at home.”

So she deftly caught the unapproachable Royalty in her apron and committed the horrible sacrilege of greasing the soles of her feet with pot grease. Of course, Kitty resented it; she resented everything in the place ; but on being set down she began to dress her p^ws, and found evident satisfaction in that grease. She licked all four feet for an hour, and the cook triumphantly announced that now “ shure she’s be apt to shtay ”; and stay she did, but she showed a most surprising and disgusting preference for the kitchen and the cook and the garbage-pail.

The family, though distressed by these high-born eccentricities, were glad to see the Royal Analostan more contented and approachable. They gave her more liberty after a week or two. They guarded her from every menace. The dogs were taught to respect her ; no man or boy about the place would have dreamed of throwing a stone at the famous pedigreed cat, and she had all the food she wanted, but still she was not happy. She was hankering for many things, she scarcely knew what. She had everything — yes, but she wanted something else. Plenty to eat and drink—yes, but milk does not taste the same when you can go and drink all you want from a saucer; it has to be stolen out of a tin pail when one is pinched with hunger, or it does not have the tang — it is not milk. How Pussy did hate it all! True, there was one sweet-smelling shrub in the whole horrible place — one that she did enjoy nipping and rubbing against; it was the only bright spot in her country life.

One day, after a summer of discontent, a succession of things happened that stirred anew the slum instincts of the royal prisoner. A great bundle of stuff from the docks had reached the country mansion. What it contained was of little moment, but it was rich with the most piquant of slum smells. The chords of memory surely dwell in the nose, and Pussy’s past was conjured up with dangerous force. Next day the cook left through some trouble. That evening the youngest boy of the house, a horrid little American with no proper appreciation of royalty, was tying a tin to the blue-blooded one’s tail, doubtless in furtherance of some altruistic project, when Pussy resented it with a paw that wore five big fish-hooks for the occasion. The howl of downtrodden America roused America’s mother ; the deft and womanly blow she aimed with her book was miraculously avoided, and Pussy took flight — upstairs, of course. A hunted rat runs downstairs, a hunted dog goes on the level, a hunted cat runs up. She hid in the garret and waited till night came. Then, gliding downstnirs, she tried the screen doors, found one unlatched, and escaped into the black August night. Pitch black to man’s eyes, it was simply grey to her, and she glided through the disgusting shrubbery and flower-beds, had a final nip at that one little bush that had been an attractive spot in the garden, and boldly took her back track of the spring.

How could she take a back track that she never saw ? There is in all animals some sense of direction. It is low in man and high in horses, but cats have a large gift, and this mysterious guide took her westward — not clearly and definitely,but with a general impulse that was made definite because the easiest travel was on the road. In an hour she had reached the Hudson River. Her nose had told her many times that the course was true. Smell after smell came back. At the river was the railroad. She could not go on the water ; she must go north or south. This was a case where her sense of direction was clear : it said “ Go south”; and Kitty trotted down the footpath between the iron rails and the fence.

LIFE III.

Cats can go very fast up a tree or over a wall; but when it comes to the long, steady trot that reels off mile after mile, hour after hour, it is not the cat-hop, but the dog-trot, that counts. She became tired and a little footsore. She was thinking of rest when a dog came running to the fence near by and broke out into such a horrible barking close to her ear that Pussy leaped in terror. She ran as hard as she could down the path. The barking seemed to grow into a low rumble — a louder rumble and roaring — a terrifying thunder. A light shone ; Kitty glanced back to see, not the dog, but a huge black thing with a blazing eye, coming on yowling and spitting like a yard full of tom-cats. She put forth all her power to run, made such time as she never had made before, but dared not leap the fence. She was running like a dog — was flying, but all in vain : the monstrous pursuer overtook her, but missed her in the darkness, and hurried past, to be lost in the night, while Kitty sat gasping for breath.

This was only the first encounter with the strange monsters — strange to her eyes — her nose seemed to know them, and told her that this was another landmark on the home trail. But Pussy learned that they were very stupid, and could not find her at all if she hid by slipping quietly under a fence and lying still. Before morning she had encountered many of them, but escaped unharmed from all. About sunrise she reached a nice little slum on her home trail, and was lucky enough to find several unsterilised eatables in an ash- heap. She spent the day around a stable. It was very like home, but she had no idea of staying there. She was driven by an inner craving that was neither hunger nor fear, and next evening set out as before. She had seen the “ one-eyed thunder-rollers ” all day going by, and was getting used to them. That night passed much like the first one. The days went by in skulking in barns, hiding from dogs and small boys, and the nights in limping along the track, for she was getting footsore ; but on she went, mile after mile, southward, ever southward — dogs, boys, roarers, hunger — dogs, boys, roarers, hunger — but day after day with increasing weariness on she went, and her nose from time to time cheered her by confidently reporting : “ This surely is a smell we passed last spring.”

So week after week went by, and Pussy, dirty, ribbonless, footsore and weary, arrived at the Harlem Bridge. Though it was enveloped in delicious smells, she did not like the look of that bridge. For half the night she wandered up and down the shore without discovering any other means of going south excepting some other bridges. Somehow she had to come back to it; not only its smells were familiar, but from time to time, when a “ one-eye ” ran over it, there was the peculiar rumbling roar that was a sensation in the springtime trip. She leaped to the timber stringer and glided out over the water. She had got less than a third of the way over when a “ thundering one-eye ” came roaring at her from the opposite end. She was much frightened, but knowing their blindness, she dropped to a low-side beam and there crouched in hiding. Of course, the stupid monster missed her and passed on, and all would have been well, but it turned back, or another just like it, and came suddenly roaring behind her. Pussy leaped to the long track and made for the home shore. She might have got there, but a third of the red-eyed terrors came roaring down at her from that side. She was running her hardest, but was caught between two foes.

There was nothing for it but a desperate leap from the timbers into—she did not know what. Down—down—down—plop ! splash! plunge into the deep water — not cold, for it was August, but oh, so horrible ! She spluttered and coughed and struck out for the shore. She had never learned to swim, and yet she swam, for the simple reason that a cat’s position and attitude in swimming are the same as her position and attitude in walking. She had fallen into a place she did not like ; naturally she tried to walk out, and the result was that she swam ashore. Which shore ? It never fails — the south—the shore nearest home. She scrambled out all dripping wet, up the muddy bank and through coal-piles and dust-heaps, looking as black, dirty, and unroyal as it was possible for a cat to look. Once the shock was over, the royal pedigreed slummer began to feel better for the plunge. A genial glow without from the bath, a genial sense of triumph within, for had she not outwitted three of the big terrors ? Her nose, her memory, and her instinct of direction inclined her to get on the track again, but the place was infested with the big thunder-rollers, and prudence led her to turn aside and follow the river bank with its musky home reminders.

She was more than two days learning the infinite dangers and complexities of the East River docks, and at length, on the third night, she reached familiar ground, the place she had passed the night of her first escape. From that her course was sure and rapid. She knew just where she was going and how to get there. She knew even the more prominent features in the dogscape now. She went faster, felt happier. In a little while she would be curled up in the old junk-yard. Another turn and the block was in sight . . . But—what! — it was gone. Kitty could not believe her eyes. There, where had stood, or leaned, or slouched, or straggled — the houses of the block— was a great broken wilderness of stone, lumber, and holes in the ground.

Kitty walked all around it. She knew by the bearings and by the local colour of the pavement that she was in her home ; that there had lived the bird-man, and there was the old junk-yard ; but all were gone, completely gone, taking the familiar odours with them ; and Pussy turned sick at heart in the utter hopelessness of the case. Her home love was her master mood. She had given up all to come to a home that no longer existed, and for once her brave little spirit was cast down. She wandered over the silent heaps of rubbish and found neither consolation nor eatables. The ruin had covered several of the blocks and reached back from the water. It was not a fire. Kitty had seen one of these things once. Pussy knew nothing of the great bridge that was to rise from this very spot. When the sun came up, Kitty sought for cover. An adjoining block still stood with little change, and the Royal Analostan retired to that. She knew some of its trails, but, once there, was unpleasantly surprised to find the place swarming with cats that, like herself, were driven from their old grounds ; and when the garbage-cans came out, there were several cats at each. It meant a famine in the land, and Pussy, after standing it a few days, set out to find her other home in Fifth Avenue. She got there to find it shut up and deserted, and the next night she returned to the crowded slum.

September and October wore away. Many of the cats died of starvation or were too weak to escape their natural enemies. But Kitty, young and strong, still lived. Great changes had come over the ruined blocks. Though silent the night she saw them, they were crowded with noisy workmen all day. A tall building was completed by the end of October, and Slum Kitty, driven by hunger, went sneaking up to a pail that a negro had set outside. The pail, unfortunately, was not garbage, but a new thing in that region, a scrubbing-pail—a sad disappointment, but it had a sense of comfort ; there was a trace of a familiar touch on the handle. While she was studying it, the negro elevator-boy came out again. In spite of his blue clothes, his odorous person confirmed the good impression of the handle. Kitty had retreated across the street. He gazed at her.

“ Sho ef dat don’t look like de Royal Ankalostan — hya, Pussy—Pussy—Pussy—Pus-s-s-y, co-o-o-me—Pus-s-sy, hya, I specs she’s sho hungry.”
Hungry! She had not had a real meal for a month. The negro went into the hall and reappeared with a portion of his own lunch.
“ Hya, Pussy, Puss—Puss—Puss ! ” At length he laid the meat on the pavement and went back to the door. Slum Kitty came, found it savoury ; sniffed at the meat, seized it, and fled like a little tigress to eat her prize in peace.

LIFE IV.

This was the beginning of a new era. Pussy came to the door of the building now when pinched by hunger, and the good feeling for the negro grew. She had never understood that man before. Now he was her friend, the only one she had. One week Pussy caught a rat. She was crossing the street in front of the new building when her friend opened the door for a well-dressed man to come out.

“ Hallo ! look at that for a cat,” said the man.
“ Yes, sah,” answered the negro ; “ dat’s ma cat, sah ; she’s a terror on rats, sah. Hez ’em ’bout cleaned up, sah ; dat’s why she so thin.”
“ Well, don’t let her starve,” said the man, with the air of a landlord. “ Can’t you feed her ? ”
“ De livermeat man comes reg’lar, sah, quatah dollar a week, sah,” said the negro, realising that he was entitled to the extra fifteen cents for the idea.
“ That’s all right ; I’ll stand it.”

Since then the negro has sold her a number of times with a perfectly clear conscience, because he knows quite well that it is only a question of a few days before the Royal Analostan comes back again. She has learned to tolerate the elevator and even to ride up and down on it. The negro stoutly maintains that once she heard the meat-man while she was on the top floor, and managed to press the button that called the elevator to take her down. She is sleek and beautiful again. She is not only one of the four hundred that form the inner circle about the liverman’s barrow, but she is recognised as the star pensioner as well. But in spite of her prosperity, her social position, her royal name and fake pedigree, the greatest pleasure of her life is to slip out and go a-slumming in the gloaming; for now, as in her previous lives, she is at heart, and likely to be, nothing but a dirty little Slum Cat.

THE WOOING OF NETTIE By Arthur h Henderson, Coleshill Chronicle, 16th June 1906

One afternoon the post brought me a letter from Bob marked “Urgent.” It ran as follows:-

“Dear Harry –
I want you to come down for a few days at once. I persuaded the Professor to take a cottage in the country in order that he might finish his new book in rural peace. Netties and her aunt, Miss Larkins, have the next cottage. It would be a coincidence – if I hadn’t known beforehand they were going to Darlington. The aunt has become a perfect dragon. She never lets Nettie out of her sight. Worse still, she – that is the aunt you know – is awfully gone on cats, and her house is chock full of them. They are all over the place and you cannot hear yourself shout at night for the noise. The Professor gets frantic and there is a frightful row on. Nettie seems to side with her aunt, and the Professor is engaged in the construction of an infernal, cat-killing machine. O can’t stop him, and I expect there will be a hecatomb of cats if it works. Then it will be all over for me with Nettie. You might come and lend a hand, old chap! Write and I’ll meet you at the station.
Your afflicted pal, Bob.”

Now Bob is one of the best of fellow, though misguided in that he hankers after matrimony. I had heard many stories of his maternal uncle, that famous electrician, Professor Samuel McSlumper, and was rather curious to see him. I could get away from town for a few days, and the prospect as depicted in Bob’s letter sounded at least interesting. The Miss Nettie Eglington is quite a charming girl, and it is always wise to be friends with the future wife of your best chum. So I went to Darlington.

On the way from the station Bob enlarged gloomily on his woes. I gathered that a state of warfare existed between the occupants of the two cottages on the outskirts of that peaceful Berkshire village. A crisis had been reached when Professor McSlumper had run a wire along the top of the wall separating the two gardens, and sent an electric current through it. However, before any of the disturbing animals had been electrocutes, Miss Larkins’s gardener had come in contact with the wire and sustained a shock. Legal proceedings had been threatened in consequence. The gardener’s mistress firmly maintained that the wall belonged to her, and that she had been deprived for some time of the services of a trusted retainer – “he spent the whole of two days at the village inn drinking beer to recover himself,” averred Bob indignantly. On the other hand the Professor contended that the man’s language was calculated to provoke a breach of his Majesty’s peace and he had been with difficulty restrained from applying to the nearest magistrate to have the offender bound over. The result of the trouble had been the removal of the offending wire, and increased audacity on the part of the cats.

“Meanwhile I never get a moment with Nettie,” concluded the despondent Bob. “I haven’t even seen her for twelve hours. After coming down here on purpose to meet her as often as possible! It maddens a fellow – all this fuss about a few beastly cats. Not but what they are pretty bad though,” he added reflectively.

It was a charming country lane with many trees, and I sought to change the subject by remarking on the beauty of the evening light upon the autumn foliage. The dogcart turned a sharp corner.

“Hist!” shouted Bob with sudden fierce energy, and the vehicle swerved so violently that I was nearly ejected. An enormous white cat sprang agitatedly across the road.
“That’s Ulysses,” said my companion, “What a mercy I saw him in time to prevent his being run over.”
I gasped; it was all I had breath for.
“Hope you weren’t bumped too much, old chap,” said Bob kindly. “But that cat is the favourite of the whole lot – a white Persian, quite unique I’, told. Called ‘Ulysses’ because of his roving habits, I expect,” he explained with a grin.

Before I could fully express my natural indignation we had pulled up at the cottage. A small black cat was sitting in a scornful attitude on the door step, and had to be chivvied away to make room for our passage. A large packing case encumbered the front garden.

“More of Uncle Sam’s apparatus,” commented his nephey. “Do you know anything about electricity?”
“Not a bit,” I replied, somewhat apprehensively.
“No more do I,” he agreed with cheerfulness. “So I never interfere with the Professor’s belongings. Too many unexpected shocks and sparks about them for my liking. I shouldn’t touch anything if I were you.”
“I won’t,” said I, with emphasis, and I began to realise I was in for a lively time.

At dinner Professor McSlumper appeared and greeted me cordially. He was a small man with a determined-looking visage, and fierce little eyes; otherwise as far as clothes and general appearance went he resembled nothing so much as a travelling pedlar with umbrellas to mend. For a time he was urbanity itself. There was an excellent dinner. Once Bob made a hurried exit through the French window on to the lawn and calmed two warring cats with a croquet mallet. This incident disturbed the Professor’s serenity.

“The feline species,” he informed me, “invariably inspire the utmost antipathy in a man of my studious constitution. It is not that I object to any of nature’s humble creatures, provided they remain in their intended sphere. But you would hardly conceive the sufferings I have endured – with the utmost patience I mad remark parenthetically – through certain wild specimens of the Felidae, with which, I regret to say, this neighbourhood abounds.”
Here, as the Professor paused and seemed to expect some comment on my part, I murmured expressions of sympathy and wonder. He received them with approval.
"My nephew Robert, I am pained to add, does not display that concurrence in my views on this subject which might be looked for from our mutual relationship. Is fact, the propinquity of numerous specimens of the cat genus has led to controversy between us, and like other questions where science is involved. such controversy has but two alternatives - a right one and a wrong one. Mine is the right.”

Fortunately Bob had wandered away into the garden again, intent, I believe, on longing glances at the back windows of the house where dwelt the fair Nettie. Consequently I acquiesced with the Professor entirely.
"I am at this time engaged," continued the man of science, "in revising the proofs of my forthcoming work on Induction Coils. Yet instead of experiencing in this rustic seclusion the peace which is so essential to my labour, I have been grievously disturbed by the unwarrantable presence of numerous - cats. In particular there resides in the next house a person with whom I no longer associate, who favours a white cat of abnormal size, besides many lesser ones."
The Professor stopped and glared with a combative air, while I hastily agreed that it was intolerable.
"I condescended to remonstrate," he went on, "with the owner of the felines, but she was loud in her defiance, despite the fact that my suggestion to destroy the cats was made in the kindliest manner. Are you acquainted with the subject of electricity?" he asked.
I deplored my ignorance, and he continued:-
"No one can acquire knowledge in all things. However, I will show you how I propose, by means of my slight attainments in that science, to deal with this scourge. Imagination is often necessary in some forms of scientific activity. My method might possibly be unauthorised by the purest science, but it is at the same time not hostile to it. I have constructed a decoy cat, which I may be pardoned for saying displays remarkable ingenuity."

Here the Professor most unexpectedly jumped to his feet, seized me by the arm, and hurried me from the dining-room. I was led unresisting to a workshop fitted with alarming apparatus. He produced a weird-looking object and purred with contentment over it like one of the much abused pussies.

"As in the case of many great inventions, this is simplicity itself,” explained the Professor, fondly patting the wooden framework. "There is the skeleton of my decoy cat. To-morrow I shall cover it with real cat-skins obtained from London, and you will see the resemblance will he strikingly complete. Within are two compartments which I will describe to you in language understandable of the lay mind."

His invention at the moment no more resembled a cat than it did a flying machine. From what I knew of the species I did not see where the decoying part of the performance was to come in, and I am afraid he read my doubts in my face.

"The fore chamber of my decoy," he continued. "will contain a gramophone construction, by means of which all those noises peculiar to the living species of cat will be uttered in lifelike manner. Controlled by an electric wire I shall be able to make its tail swell, and its nose sniff with the utmost realism. I shall place my imitation cat in a prominent position in the garden, and by this means attract all the cats of the neighbourhood around it, but it will be to their doom.”
The Professor had warmed to his subject, and went on tragically:-
“I say to their doom, since the second chamber will contain an explosive of virulent properties. As soon as the concourse of cats is complete, I shall, by means of a wire, cause a devastating explosion. It vis one of the peculiarities of my explosive – which is entirely my own invention – that it scatters destruction on all sides at the level from which it is fired. In this manner I confidently anticipate that our cottage garden will be strewn with cats. ‘Few, few shall part where many meet.’ You may not known the quotation but it is classic. Is it not a grand idea in its simplicity?”

“it is,” said I, inwardly resolving to remain at a prudent distance during the operation of converting the lawn into a mausoleum of cat fragments. I might have added more, but that a sudden catastrophe occurred. The window of the workshop was open, and Ulysses suddenly arrived on the window sill with a vicious caterwaul of defiance at some unseen foe below. This was maddening to the inventive scientist. He seized the nearest missile and flung it at the intruder. The missile happened to be a bottle. It missed the cat and broke into many fragments against the wall, whereupon there arose the most appalling stench. I gathered afterwards that the bottle had contained an ingredient for the new explosive. I held a hasty handkerchief to my nose, and was conscious that the Professor was explaining that the diffusion of noxious smelling chemicals was to be deplored. As for Ulysses, what the bottle had failed to effect, the odour of its contents did, and he vanished. Bob found me exhausting myself with language unfit for polite ears, and led me gently to the bedroom, where from the dressing-table a stray cat fled in great agitation. I began to sympathise with the Professor.

Next afternoon Bob and I called formally on Miss Larkins; I had known her slightly in town. She was a pal, thin lady with a rather high-pitched voice and a manner which clearly rendered contradiction of any sort inadvisable. She sat up stiffly in a straight-backed chair, and nursed a mother cat with several kittens. The plan of campaign, only assented to by me after considerable demur, was that I should entertain Miss Larkins, and finally warn her of the Professor’s machinations. I was to beseech her – from Bob – to keep Ulysses and her other favourite under lock and key, for a day or two only, as presumably when the decoy cat exploded it would destroy itself in the process. Afterwards there would be safety for such animals as had survived, and Bob would acquire merit as the saviour of many of the dearest. Since the explanation on my part promised to be a long one, Bob and Nettie were to wander casually into the garden. There Bob was to seek the inspiration as he put – or screw up his courage as I said – to ask the important question which he repeatedly assured me was to decide his whole future existence.

I was nervous, not was I put more at my ease by accidentally treading on the tail of Ulysses as I entered the room. There was a commotion, and I apologies – to Miss Larkins – not to the cat. She regarded me with such evident disfavour that I hurriedly invented a friend on the spur of the moment, who, by means of a Home for Lost and Destitute Cats, collected stray animals from the streets and won prizes with them at cat shows, owing to his startlingly humane and original treatment. Mis Larkins unbent and displayed so much interest in the details that my imaginative powers were sorely taxed. Nettie smiled upon me with softened sweetness and Bob suggested an immediate visit to the rose garden.

“Take care of auntie,” said Nettie demurely to me, as she preceded Bob through the French window, “She will be delighted to talk to a true lover of cats, because they are so rare now.”

Personally I considered Miss Larkins of an age to be perfectly able to take care of herself, but I stelled my heart to my task and discussed for a while the decadence of the present race of kittens.

“The great thin,” said I enthusiastically, “is when you’ve got a fine cat to guard it zealously from harm.” Here I stroked Ulysses gingerly. White cats are of particularly uncertain temper, I believe. Ulysses responded by purring rather doubtfully.
“The fact is, Miss Larkins,” I continued, “I have come here with a purpose. I have grave reason to fear that a catastrophe is impending which Bob and I are powerless to avert. Professor McSlumper” – she gave a little sniff at the name – “is an authority on electricity and explosives. He is not to be trusted; moreover he is vindictive.”
The lady agreed to this with emphasis.
“Poor Stubbs, my gardener,” she informed me, “has suffered owing to his wickedness. Stubbs is a dear, hardworking creature with nine children and a cast in one eye. He has not been the same man since, and his nerves require constant cordials to enable him to continue his work.”
“My dear Miss Larkins,” said I with husky solemnity, “a far worse disaster is about to happen. It is absolutely essential that you should keep Ulysses and your other pets safely at home till Bob and I – but especially Bob – have discovered that the peril is past. More of this I would tell you if I dared,” I added melodramatically, “but my lips are sealed.”

She regarded me with horror. In her indescribably emotion she inadvertently upset the mother cat into an adjacent wastepaper-basket. I fetched it out, and restored it to its owner’s lap. It showed its gratitude by viciously digging its claws into me. At that moment there came through the window a weird and wondrous noise. On the stillness of the afternoon air was wafted an appalling mew. This was followed by a series of screeches as of an animal in prolonged agony, but a metallic note in the discord convinced me that the Professor was practising with gramophone department of his new invention.

“Bless my soul!” cried Miss Larkins, hastily rising and depositing her interesting family on the same chair as my silk hat. “This is horrible. It sounds as if some poor animal were in pain.”

The noise ended abruptly with a sudden splutter. Something had gone wrong with the works of the decoy. Miss Larkins flew to collect her pets from harm, and I snatched up my hat and rushed into the garden. I found Bob and Nettie among the rose bushes, but in a most unloverlike attitude. Clearly there was a disagreement in progress. Both were visibly ruffled.

“You care more for Ulysses than you do for me,” I heard Bob say indignantly.
“He never says rude things to me like that,” she retorted. A pretty girl defiant always interest me, so I waited a minute before interrupting them.
“I’ll be the death of some of these confounded cats,” muttered Bob vengefully. He must have fairly lost his head.
“If you hurt them I’ll never speak to you again,” the girl challenged hotly. “You say you love me, and that you want to please auntie! Why don’t you show some affectionate interest in her pets, then? You never notice the dear, sweet things.”

Bob’s open honest countenance was a perfect study. I could see he was almost choking in his efforts to restrain himself from uttering his feelings aloud. Unfortunately he didn’t quite succeed.
“Not notice them!” he burst forth at las, “Great heavens! As if anyone within a mile of this place could help it. They are a perfect pest. There was one on my bed this morning.”
“I hope you treated it kindly,” said Miss Edlington coldly.
“I gave it a swim in the bath before I let it go,” confessed the candid Bob sulkily. “Just to teach it better manners.” It was foolish of him to admit it, but I sympathised with him.
The girl turned with dignity. “When you show me that you are no longer cruel I shell be pleased to meet with you again,” she said; “but you must prove it first. Till then – good-bye.”

Hereupon I thought it wise to break in upon the scene, stimulated by the vision of Miss Larkins approaching. There was an absence of cordiality about our farewells all round which I deplored. I dragged Bob home to drown his sorrows in whisky and soda. A hammering noise from the workshop betokened the Professor at work on alterations and repairs. Presently he appeared mopping his head with a large red cotton handkerchief. He also partook of refreshment with the air of having passed successfully through a harassing experience.
“I have difficulties to overcome,” he intimated, “But I have wrestled with them so that all is now complete. I am sanguine that the morrow will see my efforts crowned by the sweeping destruction of many cats. Science will once more demonstrate its elevating influence.”

I led Bob aside and spoke to him seriously. “Now here is your chance, my dear fellow,” said I with impressiveness. “Let the decoy get to work and collect the cats all round it. You must hang about and get hold of Ulysses when he arrives on the scene. Then when the thing explodes rush frantically into Miss Larkins with Ulysses under your arm, and explain how you have saved his life at the risk of your own.”

“He isn’t easy to catch,” said Bob with gloomy countenance.
“Nonsense!” I assured him, with growing confidence in the brilliancy of my idea. “You might take another cat under your arm at the same time, if you look lively about it.”
“But suppose the infernal thing should explode unexpectedly,” objected Bob, hesitating most unreasonably. “The Professor is clever you know, but still, it might go off before I got clear.”
“You can’t be heroic without some risk,” I urged. “Think how you will score with Nettie!”
“Very well,” he agreed in a tone of ungrateful resignation. “But I hope nothing will go wrong. You never can count on explosives being punctual; it is just as likely to damage me as the cats.”

I also trusted that nothing would go wrong. I had my secret doubts, but I suppressed them and refused to discuss further details. It wasn’t wise. The thing I feared most now was that Miss Larkins would follow my advice – given before I had conceived this higher strategy – and keep her especial pets at home. I ventured to hint this one objection to Bob.”

“If you told her to do one thing,” said he emphatically, “you may rest assured she will do something else.” Which was a disparaging view to take of the character of a deserving lady.

Then the morrow came. The Professor was up early, sniffing – as the proverbial warhorse – the scent of battle. While I shaved I saw him proceeding warily down the garden like the conspirator in a melodrama; only in place of the dagger of orthodox tragedy he carried the cat which was to decoy. I peered anxiously at the completed animal presently planted in the middle of the lawn - it really wasn’t much like a cat – and descended to breakfast with expedition. The coming experiment proved fatally inconsistent with a restful meal such as breakfast should always be. Conversation was strained and abbreviated and the Professor’s eyes wandered constantly to the window in longing expectation of the triumph to some. Then we all got to work with great energy laying wires and connecting batteries. In this process, which I did not understand in the least, I sustained two unexpected electric shocks. My caustic comments thereat irritated the inventor, who also seemed to have mislaid most of the things he required. Our tempers became sorely strained. The Professor suggested that I should shift the decoy while he manipulated the batteries indoors. I declined abruptly, and Bob, the now patient devotee to science, tripped over some connection so that something fearful almost happened.

There was some discussion as to the hour of the day most suitable for the collection of roving cats. The Professor was eager to begin straight away, but Bob and I overcame this idea, because we had watched Nettie start out on a shopping expedition to the village. The Professor knew no natural history, however great his other attainments, and I assured him confidently that the afternoon was the favoured time for cats to promenade. He bowed to my superior knowledge of cat habits, but my attempts to pose as an authority for the species created a precarious situation when he inquired thoughtfully whether cats moved their tails vertically or horizontally. However, I first ascertained that the decoy did the former, and satisfied him as to its correctness on this point.

It was a thrilling moment when I watched from a safe distance the Professor switch on his current. The decoy cat really acted in most extraordinary fashion. It began by howling dismally. Next it caterwauled in a manner distantly resembling a cat, provided the listener’s imagination was decently vivid. Then it mewed invitingly, and again screeched defiance. It wailed with shrill and searching shrieks, and jerked its head about so violently that I wondered if the Professor had fastened the cat-skins strongly enough to stand the strain. It certainly wagged what was meant for its tail as no appendage was ever wagged by natural possessor before. The most striking demonstration of all was when real cats began to respond to the challenge. A savage looking little tabby first appeared from under some bushes, and a large black tom arrived from the stable, manifesting distinct anger. Then I perceived Ulysses walking along the wall, delicately sniffing. It was a low wall, and I became apprehensive when I saw three heads rise above it with startling suddenness. They belonged to Miss Larkins, Nettie, and Stubbs respectively. Things were happening rather differently from what I anticipated.

To the onlooker over the wall our garden must have appeared empty. This evidently prompted Mr. Stubbs to valour. To my exceeding horror he flung a brick at the decoy, now in the full career of its calling. Mercifully it missed. I fear the worthy gardener had been soothing his nerves with an undue allowance of beer, for he gazed wildly at Professor McSlumper’s new invention with a bleary eye, Next moment he was over the garden wall with a spade firmly clutched in one hand. Stealthily, though rather unsteadily, he stalked the decoy with the air of a man who has discovered something dangerous and is going to destroy it or perish in the attempt. It WAS dangerous, though not in the manner he surmised. He crept up behind it till a new idea seemed to strike him, and he paused. The he suddenly drove the spade violently into the ground between the decoy and the house with such force that it completely severed the electric wires which we had been at such pains to lay that morning. The invention became mute and lifeless at once. Then, after carefully reconnoitring the foe, Mr. Stubbs seized the decoy, recovered his spade, and rushed for the wall with great expedition. Had he been in normal condition he must have noticed the unnatural hardness and the uncanny weight of his capture. But he evidently didn’t.

There was a howl of wrath from Bob, who most imprudently gave chase. Infected by his ardour I followed with heroism and slower steps. As I did so, I heard the Professor’s voice in sultry communion with himself from the workshop window. The gardener gave one glance at his pursuers and deposited the decoy on the top of the wall preparatory to following it himself. But we had all overlooked Ulysses. What mortal white Persian cat could stand the insult of so unspeakably fiendish an apparition planted just under his nose on his favourite walk or wall? Ulysses turned lazily, rounded his back, stretched himself, surveyed his legs and paws with deliberation, and then sprang savagely at the intruder. Down it went with a crash.

There followed a most terrific bang. Never had that peaceful Berkshire garden re-echoed with so shattering a report. It boomed, it reverberated, it appalled. But proof is now indisputably established that the chief merit of Professor McSlumper’s explosive consists in the noise it makes when fired by concussion rather than in the material damage it effects. This characteristic on its part undoubtedly save our precious human lives, though many cucumber frames suffered, and the resultant hubbub was considerable. I saw Ulysses describe a parabolic curve of the wall, skim devastatingly through two rose bushes and come to an abruptly final pause on a heap of garden compost. We heard Miss Larkins – worthy soul – go straightway into hysterics, and Bob was about to rush to her assistance.

It is the mark of a great mind to rise swiftly to sudden emergencies, and I shall always pride myself on the skill of my behaviour on that difficult occasion. First, I boldly secured Ulysses, who spat and fluffed at me alarmingly, but allowed me to pick him up without too violent a struggle. I turned to Bob.
“Here is the cat, Ulysses,” I said triumphantly, “Take it – quick man! Remember what I told you – you have saved him from a horrible death as proof of the love she required of you. Have it out with Nettie, and I’’ look after Aunt June – bless her!”

Miss Larkins was so softened at our miraculous preservation that she produced an alcoholic cordial of which we both partook in undignified gulps. Stubbs, scared almost into sobriety, was left to calm several of the lower orders of the village who arrived to rest their elbows on the front railings and make rude remarks. Various cats were unearthed by frightened domestics and the roll call read. When the collection was found to be intact there was an affecting scene. I was so moved that I returned to the garden. After some search I discovered Bob and Nettie in the summer-house. They seemed contented and happy, so much so that I ventured to offer my congratulations. These being well received I went away, as the situation did not require a third party.

I am to be best man at Bob’s wedding next month. My present to the bride is a miniature gold cat set with diamonds. I rather pride myself on the design; anyhow it won’t explode during the ceremony.

The Firs, Torhampton, was the address which the Countess of Dexter used on her cards [. . .] The Countess of Dexter had lived there ever since her second husband’s death, with her two daughters, several family members, and a menagerie of cats, specimens of which she occasionally exhibited at the local cat show.