"I hate small cats," says Tommy. "I want a big one! I want—" pausing to find a suitable simile, and happily remembering the kennel outside—"a regular setter of a cat!"
"Ah," says Mr. Browne, "I expect I shall have to telegraph to India for a tiger for you."
"A real live tiger?" asks Tommy, with distended eyes and a flutter of wild joy at his heart, the keener that some fear is mingled with it. "A tiger that eats people up?"
"A man-eater," says Mr. Browne, solemnly. "It would be the nearest approach I know to the animal you have described. As you won't have the cat that Lady Baltimore will give you, you must only try to put up with mine."
"Poor Lady Baltimore!" lisps Mrs. Blake. "What a great deal she has to endure."
"Oh, she's all right to-day," returns Mr. Browne, cheerfully. "Toothache any amount better this morning."
Mrs. Blake laughs in a little mincing way.
"How droll you are," says she. "Ah! if it were only toothache that was the matter But—" silence very effective, and a profound sigh.
"Toothache's good enough for me," says Dicky. "I should never dream of asking for more." He glances here at Joyce, and continues sotto voce, "You look as if you had it."
"No," returns she innocently. "Mine is neuralgia. A rather worse thing, after all."