‘I always read my compositions to them,’ said Percy. ‘Pallas acts sapient judge to admiration, and Puss never commits herself, applauding only her own music—like other critics. We reserve our hisses for others.’
‘How do you feed the owl, Percy?’
‘A small boy provides her with sparrows and mice for sixpence a dozen. I doubted whether it was cruelty to animals, but decided that it was diverting the spirit of the chase to objects more legitimate than pocket-handkerchiefs.’
‘Ho! so there you seek your proteges!’
‘He sought me. I seized him fishing in my pocket. I found he had no belongings, and that his most commodious lodging-house was one of the huge worn-out boilers near Nine-Elms—an illustration for Watts’s Hymns, Theodora.’
‘Poor little creature!’ said Violet, horrified. ‘What will become of him?’
‘He is doing justice to the patronage of the goddess of wisdom,’ said Percy. ‘He is as sharp as a needle, and gets on in the world—has discarded “conveying,” and promoted himself to selling lucifers.’
‘A happy family theirs will be,’ said Arthur. ‘Cat, owl, and two rival pages!’
So, having duly admired all, curious books, potteries, red and black, tiles and lachrymatories, coins, scraps of ancient armour, a stuffed bee-eater, and the bottled remains of a green lizard that had been a pet at Constantinople—and having been instructed in the difference between various Eastern modes of writing—the merry visit closed; and as the two sisters went home they planned a suit of clothes for the owl’s provider, Theodora stipulating for all the hard and unusual needlework.