I
Omar Ben Sufi was a cat. This unadorned statement would have wounded Omar Ben to the marrow of his pride, for he chanced to be a splendid tiger-marked feline of purest Persian breed, with glorious yellow eyes and a Solomon-in-all-his-glory tail. His pedigree could be traced directly back to Padisha Zim Yuki Yowsi Zind—a dignity, in itself, sufficient to cause an aristocratic languor; but, to the layman, he was just a cat.
He dwelt with an exclusive family of humans in a little eighty-thousand-dollar cottage on the outskirts of vulgarity—which is to say, the villa was situated near enough to town to admit of marketing, but far enough removed therefrom to escape the clatter of plebeian toil and the noxious contact with the unhealthy, unwealthy herd. Here the humans entertained selected friends who came at the ends of weeks to admire the splendor of Omar Ben's tail, to bow down to the humans' money, and to hate them fiercely because they had it.
The master did not toil. He lived, for certain hours of the day, in Wall Street, where he sank his patrician fingers into the throats of lesser men, squeezed them dry, then washed his hands in violet water, and built a church. True, he did not attend this church himself, but he built it; otherwise his neighbors might have been deprived of the opportunity of praising God.
Omar Ben had a French maid all to himself—a perky little human with a quasi-kinship to the feline race—who combed him and brushed him and slicked him down and gave him endless, mortifying baths. Also, she tied lavender bows about his neck, and fed him from Dresden china on minute particles of flaked fish and raw sirloin, with a dessert of pasteurized cream.
In the rear of the eighty-thousand-dollar cottage there was a thirty-thousand-dollar flower-garden—an oppressively clean garden, where the big Jack-roses were as immaculate as a "mama's Lizzie-boy," and the well-bred, timid little violets seemed to long to play in the dirt, yet dared not because of the master-rule of "form." And here the clean cat used to sun himself in the clean garden, thinking his clean thoughts and perishing of ennui clean through.
Then, one day, from the vulgar outer world came an unclean incident.
Omar Ben became conscious of an uproar beyond the garden wall. It embraced a whimper of canine hope, a spitting taunt, and the patter of flying paws; then, suddenly, on the top of the high brick wall appeared a cat. The newcomer paused an instant to fling an obscene au revoir at the raging, disappointed dog, dropped carelessly down into a geranium-bed, and took his bearings.
He was not a patrician. Omar Ben eyed him in a sort of wondering awe. The stranger was a long-barreled, rumple-furred, devil-clawed street arab, of a caste—or no-caste—that battles for existence with the world—and beats it. On his tail were rings of missing fur, suggesting former attachments, not of lady friends, but of tin cans and strings. For further assets, he possessed one eye and a twisted smile. His present total liability lay in the dog beyond the wall, so the arab wasn't so badly fixed, after all. Besides, he owned property. It consisted of a bullfrog which he carried in his mouth, with its legs and web feet protruding in wriggly, but unavailing, protest.
To breathe the better, the street cat dropped his frog and set one mangy paw upon it; then, suddenly, he spied the Persian.
"Hello, bo!" he observed cheerfully. "Didn't see yer. Did yer pipe me chase wid de yelper? Dat stilt-legged son of a saw-toothed tyke has had his nose on me rudder-post fer more'n a mile."
The Persian made no answer, and the arab continued, unabashed:
"It's a hunch dat I could 'a' clawed de stuffin's outer him, but I didn't want fer to lose me lunch. Say! Wot's yer name?"
Omar Ben regarded the interloper with the same glance of refined surprise that the master might have employed when a fleeced plebeian entered his office, demanding to know why the market had slumped in direct contradiction to confidential prophecy. He elevated his patrician brows, but gave the desired information politely:
"My ribbon-name is Omar Ben Sufi, first-born of the second litter of Yiki Zootra and Sultana Yaggi Kiz. Here at home, however, I am known by a variety of others, such as Mon Prince de Manière Charmante, Sugar-pie-precious, and—"
"Aw, cut it!" snapped the street cat disgustedly. "Dem ain't no decent names! D'ey's positive ridick'lous! Mine's Ringtail Pete, but me frien's has reasons fer fergittin' de tail part of it when dey names me to me face—see?"
He smiled his twisted smile, raised one paw, and regarded its claws with a sort of humorous pride.
The Persian cat said nothing. Ringtail Pete was obviously an undesirable acquaintance; therefore Omar Ben held his tongue, and became interested in the bullfrog. Curiosity, however, conquered refined reserve.
"What is it?" he asked presently.
"Frawg," said the street cat, with laconic candor, as he gracefully mauled the subject of discussion. "I gets 'em over to the frawg-pawnd up back of Lumkins's tannery. Have a piece?"
"Thank you, no," returned the Persian, with a faint smile of his own. "I've just had luncheon."
Pete shrugged his gaunt shoulders, murdered the frog, and prepared to dispose of it permanently. Omar Ben edged closer. In spite of his polite refusal, the frog fascinated him. Never in all his benighted life had he tasted one morsel which had not been prepared for him on dainty china; but now it was different. Across the geranium-bed came a strange, alluring scent—a scent which roused the memory of inheritance—a memory well-nigh washed out of him, and his sire before him, by the bottle-pap of luxury. A memory it was of wild things, to be killed—a blood-lust memory—and now at last it woke in a pampered, velvet-hearted cat.
Ringtail Pete was conscious of the other's wistful look, and laughed; for his battle with life had taught him generosity.
"Say, bo, yer don't want to do de bashful—see?—'cause me 'n' you is gents what understands de game er chanst. Here—take holt an' chaw yerse'f off a hunk!"
The aristocrat hesitated, then slid down one rung on the ladder of degradation—pushed by blood-lust and by the strange compelling camaraderie of an arab of the streets. It was wrong, he knew, but then there was a certain flavor in this wrong; so, gingerly, he crossed the geranium-bed, took one web foot firmly between his teeth, and wondered at the thrill of life that sparked and snapped along his spine. Then Pete and Omar Ben tugged and tugged, till the clean geranium-bed was a comfortable, wholesome wreck.
"Hully gee!" grinned Ringtail Pete. "We otter make a wish!"
They made it, and the metaphoric wish-bone parted with a jerk, Omar Ben rolling upon his lordly back in the healthy dirt; but he rose and devoured his frog-leg to its smallest bone, wishing with all his heart that the frog had been a bigger frog. Then he licked his chops and looked in admiration on his worldly friend.
"Thank you, so much," he began, but the arab waved formality aside.
"Aw, 't wan't nuttin'," he declared, "an' dey tastes a darn sight better when yer wades fer 'em. Say! Look-a-here! You meet me to-night on de top er dis here wall, an' I'll learn yer how to wade fer frawgs."
"Oh, dear!" began the Persian, trembling at the very mention of the outer world. "Really, Mr. Pete, I—really—"
"Punk!" cut in the arab, dismissing the protest with a switch of his mutilated tail. "I won't take 'naw' fer a answer; an' dis here's de way fer to jump yer wealthy crib. You watch me!"
He backed away, then took a running start and made the coping of the wall in a splendid, scurrying rush, amid a shower of scattered ivy-leaves. On the top he turned and called to the wondering aristocrat:
"Jes' wait fer me an' de moon, me son, an' dontcher fergit dat frawgs is frawgs!"
Once more he smiled his twisted smile, and was gone into the vulgar outer world. He had not waited for a promise from his friend, for Pete was wise in his little hour of life and left the keeping of a tryst with the honor of a gentleman.