George looked. With staring eyes he gazed upon the two cats. With arched tails they advanced to exchange compliments, and the nearer they stood together the less Rose-like became the cat he had brought into the room. For the cat that Mr. Marrapit had produced—Mrs. Major's cat, as he called it—was the Rose herself; could be none other, and none other (when thus placed alongside) could be she.
Struck unconscious to his surroundings by this appalling spectacle, George slowly stooped towards the cats as though hypnotised by the orange coats. His eyes goggled further from his head; the blood went thumping in his temples. He was aghast and horror-struck with the stupefaction that comes of effort to disbelieve the eyes. But he did disbelieve his eyes. How possibly trust them when from the Rose's very bed he had taken the Rose herself and held her till now when he produced her? He did disbelieve his eyes.
He gave Mrs. Major's cat a careless pat. By an effort throwing a careless tone into his voice, “A very good imitation,” he said. “Not at all unlike the Rose!”
Mr. Marrapit became an alarming sight. He intook an enormous breath that swelled him dangerously. He opened his lips and the air rushed out with roaring sound. Again he inspired, raised his clenched hands above his head, stood like some great tottering image upon the brink of internal explosion.
As upon a sudden thought, he checked the bursting words that threatened from his lips; allowed his pent-up breath to escape inarticulate; to his normal size and appearance shrank back when it was gone.
With an air of ebbing doubt, “Not at all unlike?” he questioned.
George replied briskly. He forced himself to take confidence, though every moment made yet more difficult the struggle to disbelieve what his eyes told him. “Not at all unlike,” he affirmed. “Very similar, in fact. Yes, I should say very similar indeed.”
Still in the same tone of one who is being reluctantly convinced, Mr. Marrapit again played Echo's part: “Very similar indeed? You grant that?”
“Certainly,” George admitted frankly. “Certainly. I do not wonder you were mistaken.”
“Nor I,” Mr. Marrapit smoothly replied. “Indeed, in Mrs. Major's cat I detect certain signs which my Rose has long borne but which she has no longer, if the cat you bring is she?”