‘It don’t sound like it,’ said the policeman grimly.
‘I daresay they’re not REAL cats,’ said Jane madly, perhaps they’re only dream-cats.’
‘I’ll dream-cat you, my lady,’ was the brief response of the force.
‘If you understood anything except people who do murders and stealings and naughty things like that, I’d tell you all about it,’ said Robert; ‘but I’m certain you don’t. You’re not meant to shove your oar into people’s private cat-keepings. You’re only supposed to interfere when people shout “murder” and “stop thief” in the street. So there!’
The policeman assured them that he should see about that; and at this point the Phoenix, who had been making itself small on the pot-shelf under the dresser, among the saucepan lids and the fish-kettle, walked on tip-toed claws in a noiseless and modest manner, and left the room unnoticed by any one.
‘Oh, don’t be so horrid,’ Anthea was saying, gently and earnestly. ‘We LOVE cats—dear pussy-soft things. We wouldn’t hurt them for worlds. Would we, Pussy?’
And Jane answered that of course they wouldn’t. And still the policeman seemed unmoved by their eloquence.
‘Now, look here,’ he said, ‘I’m a-going to see what’s in that room beyond there, and—’
His voice was drowned in a wild burst of mewing and squeaking. And as soon as it died down all four children began to explain at once; and though the squeaking and mewing were not at their very loudest, yet there was quite enough of both to make it very hard for the policeman to understand a single word of any of the four wholly different explanations now poured out to him.
‘Stow it,’ he said at last. ‘I’m a-goin’ into the next room in the execution of my duty. I’m a-goin’ to use my eyes—my ears have gone off their chumps, what with you and them cats.’