“Your father seems to know everything—such a lot of useful things as well as higher mathematics,” said the Terror.
“That’s why he has a European reputation,” said Wiggins; and he spurned the earth.
That afternoon the Twins bicycled into Rowington and bought a bottle of the enchanting drug. Just before they reached the village, on their way home, the Terror produced a rag with a piece of string tied to it, poured some valerian on it and trailed it after his bicycle through the village to his garden gate.
The result demonstrated the accuracy of the scientific knowledge of the father of Wiggins. All that evening and far into the night twelve cats fought clamorously round the house of the Dangerfields.
The next day the Terror turned the cats’ home into a cat-trap. He cut a hole in the bottom of its door large enough to admit a cat and fitted it with a hanging flap which a cat would readily push open from the outside, but lacked the intelligence to raise from the inside. He was late finishing it, and went from it to his dinner.
They had just come to the end of the simple meal when they heard a ring at the back door; and old Sarah came in to say that Polly Cotteril had come from the village with some kittens. The Twins excused themselves politely to their mother, and hurried to the kitchen to find that Polly had brought no less than five small kittens in a basket.
Forthwith the Terror filled a saucer with milk and applied the lapping test. Four of the kittens lapped the milk somewhat feebly, but they lapped. The fifth would not lap. It only mewed. Therefore the Terror took only four of the kittens, giving Polly a shilling for them. The fifth he returned to her, bidding her bring it back when it could lap.
They took the four kittens down to the cats’ home; and since they were so small, they put them in one hutch for warmth, with a saucer of milk to satisfy their hunger during the night.
“Now we’ve got these kittens, we needn’t bother about getting cats,” said the Terror as they returned to the house. “And I’m glad it is kittens and not cats. Kittens eat less.”
“Then you’ve had all the trouble of making that little door for nothing,” said Erebus.