George foresaw disaster. That smell! that hungry cat! Almost he pushed Mrs. Pinner to the door. “That you, thank you. I have everything now. I will ring if—”
“Mi-aow!”
“Bless my soul!” Mrs. Pinner exclaimed. “There is a cat”; dropped on hands and knees; pushed her head beneath the sofa.
George rushed for the basket. Wreaking his craven alarm upon the hapless prisoner, he shook it; with a horrible bump slammed it upon the floor; placed his foot upon it.
Mrs. Pinner drew up, panting laboriously. “Didn't you hear a cat, mister?”
George grappled the crisis. “I did not hear a cat. If there were a cat I should have heard it. I should have felt it. I abominate cats. I can always tell when a cat is near me. There is no cat. Kindly leave me to my breakfast.”
Poor Mrs. Pinner was ashamed. “I'm sure I do beg you parding, mister. The fact is we've all got cats fair on the brain this morning. In this here new paper, mister, as perhaps you've seen, and they're giving us a free copy every day for a week, there's a cat been stole, mister. A hundred pounds reward, and as the paper says, the cat may be under your very nose. We're all a 'unting for it, mister.”
She withdrew. George crossed the room; pressed his head, against the cold marble of the mantelpiece. His brows were burning; in the pit of his stomach a sinking sensation gave him pain. “All a 'unting for it! all a 'unting for it!”
When the Rose had bulged her flanks with the complete haddock, when, responsive to a “Stuff your head in that, you brute,” the patient creature had lapped a slop-bowl full of milk, George again imprisoned her; rushed, basket under arm, for open country.
Mr. Pinner in the bar-parlour, as George fled through, was reading from a paper to a stable hand, a servant girl, and a small red-headed Pinner boy: “It may be in John o' Groats,” he read, “or it may be in Land's End.” He thumped the bar. “'Ear that! Well, it may be in Dippleford Admiral.”