“Pussikins, pussikins!” implored Mrs. Major.
Pussikins very deliberately seated itself; coiled its fine tail about its feet; regarded Mrs. Major with a sphinx-like air.
Mrs. Major pressed till the iron railings cut her shoulders. She stretched the forefinger of her extended arm; at great peril of slipping forward and rasping her nose along the rails effected to scratch the top of the sphinx's head.
“Puss, puss! Tweety, tweety puss!”
By not so much as a blink did tweety puss stir a muscle.
Mrs. Major was in considerable pain. Her bent legs were cramped; the railings bit her shoulder; her neck ached: “Tweety little puss! Tweety puss! Puss! Drat the beast!”
In great physical agony and in heightening mental distress—since time was fleeting and the cat as statuesque as ever,—Mrs. Major again dratted it twice with marked sincerity and a third time as a sharp sound advertised the splitting of a secret portion of her wear against the tremendous strain her unnatural position placed upon it. Unable longer to endure the pain of her outstretched arm, she dropped her hand to earth; with a masterly effort resumed her smiling face and silky tone. Repeating her endearing cooings, she scratched the soil, enticing to some hidden mystery.
The demon of curiosity impelled this cat's doom. For a moment it eyed the scratching fingers; then stretched forward its head to investigation.
The time for gentle methods was gone. Mrs. Major gripped the downy scruff of the doomed creature's neck; dragged the surprised animal forward; rudely urged it through the railings; tucked it beneath her cloak; sped down the road in the same direction that the tall figure had taken.
But where the tall figure had turned round the gardens Mrs. Major kept straight. Along a main street, into a by-street, round a turning, across a square, up a terrace, over the Edgware Road—so into the bed-sitting-room at Angel Street.