PROF. BONNETTY’S TROUPE.
Master and pupils are on the best possible terms with each other. Their “hours in school” are short, their quarters exquisitely tidy, and their food—of milk, bread and liver—invariably the best and freshest of its kind.
They are really cats of high culture; the best proof whereof is the simplicity and ease with which they do difficult things. No circus-rider ever jumped through hoops, walked ropes, climbed poles or waltzed over chairs, with greater agility. They sheathe their claws to live and play in amity with birds and mice. They are “cats with a conscience,” as the professor says, and their helpless, confiding little associates have no more fear of them than of one another.
Juno, Sjenni, Maor, Tommek, Blanc, Cæsar, Brutus, Paris, Bruxelles, Henderik, Swart and Gora were the members of the troupe some years past—together with Boulanger, a tiger-marked kitten who displayed “little fear and a great thirst for fame,” and Tyber, the star-actor. The latter was a wonderful performer, evincing a fine intellect, and, says De Biez, would certainly have been a god in Egypt!
A parallel may be found for these clever French felines in the Brighton cats of England. They are more discriminatingly chosen than Prof. Bonnetty’s actors; but their performances, although different in some respects, are no more wonderful. One of them, a white Angora, rides a bicycle with much grace. When fairly started she becomes enthusiastic, and urges her two-wheeler rapidly along, with an evident enjoyment that the by-standers find contagious. The tabbies do housework to perfection, scrub little handkerchiefs or towels in a tub, hang up the washing, preside over the roast beef of Old England, or the tea things, skate on rollers, and all with such blithe content and spirit, that they seem like little witches masquerading in fur.
THE HEAD OF THE FAMILY.
FIVE O’CLOCK TEA.