He lost no time setting to work on it, and worked till it was time to go down to the vicarage for his morning’s lessons with the vicar. He set to work again as soon as he returned; he worked all the afternoon; and he saw to it that Erebus worked, too.
In the middle of the afternoon Wiggins came. He had spent a fruitless hour lying in wait on the common to scalp the Twins as they sallied forth into the world, and then had come to see what had kept them within their borders. He was deeply impressed by the sight of the bicycles, but not greatly surprised: his estimation of the powers of his friends was too high for any of their exploits to surprise him greatly. But he was somewhat aggrieved that they should have obtained their bicycles before he had obtained his. None the less he helped them construct the cats’ home with enthusiasm.
For three strenuous days they persisted in their untiring effort. So much sustained carpentering was hard on their hands; many small pieces were chipped out of them. But their spirits never flagged; and by sunset on the third day they had constructed accommodation for thirty cats. It may be that the wooden bars of the hutches were not all of the same breadth, but at any rate they were all of the same thickness: and it would be a slim cat, indeed, that would squirm through them.
At sunset on the third day the exultant trio gazed round the transformed cow-house with shining triumphant eyes; then Erebus said firmly: “What we want now is cats.”
CHAPTER IV
AND THE VISIT OF INSPECTION
Cats did not immediately flow in, though the Twins, riding round the countryside on their bicycles, spread the information that they were willing to afford a home to such of those necessary animals as their owners no longer needed. They had, indeed, one offer of a cat suffering from the mange; but the Terror rejected it, saying coldly to its owner that theirs was a home, not a hospital.
The impatient Erebus was somewhat vexed with him for rejecting it: she pointed out that even a mangy cat was a beginning.
Slowly they grew annoyed that the home on which they had lavished such strenuous labor remained empty; and at last the Terror said: “Look here: I’m going to begin with kittens.”
“How will you get kittens, if you can’t get cats? Everybody likes kittens. It’s only when they grow up and stop playing that they don’t want them,” said Erebus with her coldest scorn.
“I’m going to buy them,” said the Terror firmly. “I’m going to give threepence each for kittens that can just lap. We don’t want kittens that can’t lap. They’d be too much trouble.”