Now, Ash-Can Sam had a reputation of his own, as every cat in the neighborhood could testify with sorrow and with tears. He weighed eleven pounds. He kept himself in training; and, where others lived for love or wealth or art, Ash-Can Sam existed for a finish fight alone. At the present speaking he came swaggering around a corner, and paused in astonishment at the sight of a stranger sitting in the middle of the street. The insolence of it! It was past belief!
"Oh, please, Mr. Bo!" wailed Lizzie, wringing her paws as she perched upon the roof. "Do hurry while youse has got de chanst! He'll rip you somethin' terrible! For my sake, dearie, won't you slope?"
"No, not upon your life!" called Omar Ben gravely. "I will not demean myself by retreating from any cat alive."
This statement was fat with brave audacity, but lean in the matter of discretion; so Pete leaned down with one last friendly whisper of appeal:
"W'y, you chowder-headed ass, he'll make yer look like a moth-et flannel shirt! Beat it!"
The patrician declined to "beat it," and Ash-Can Sam edged a little closer, wearing a dissolute, wicked leer of joy. He circled slowly round the stranger cat, eying Omar Ben's glossy coat and humming a sort of vulgar chant:
Ain't it a sham-m-m-m-e!
To chaw up mommer's sugar-pet,
An' hurt his nose, not soon, but yet.
Oh, ain't it a sham-m-m-m-e!
Omar Ben regarded the bully in calm scorn. "You disreputable beast," he said, "shut up!"
Sam, in no uncertain terms, stated his unwillingness to shut up, and the conversation became personal.
"Yer blink-eyed yard er silk, I'm a goin' to turn you cat-out-the-skin an' sell yer tail fer a fancy dustin'-brush!"