“Take your cat away, I tell you,” shouted Oddfellow, “take it away. I wouldn’t destroy it for a thousand pounds!”

“You won’t, oh?”

“Put an end to you with pleasure!”

“Yes?”

“Make you a present of a dose of poison whenever you like to come and take it!”

“Yes?”

“I will!”

Franks went away with his tom-cat.

“O ... my ... lord!” ejaculated the chemist, that being his favourite evocation; “I’ll do no more of this cat-and-dog business. I shall not do any more; no, I shall not. I do not like it at all.”

But in the afternoon his assistant, who had not been informed of this resolve, accepted two more victims for the lethal chamber, another tom-cat and a collie dog.