“There ain’t any shops on Deer Hill.” The change in tone told that Fritz’s obstinacy was weakening. He looked down speculatively at the disreputable-appearing animal in his arms. She was a cat of many battles, and many “droppings.” By this last method do the soft-hearted country-folk pass on to their neighbors the nuisance which has become intolerable to themselves. There are tramp cats as well as human beings; and if the “Marm Puss,” which was losing her breath under her captor’s tight squeeze, could have told the tale of her life, it would have harrowed the soul of the boy so that even “taffy” would have been powerless to tempt him. “Marm Puss” had tumbled out of a bag at The Snuggery gate that very morning, brought thither by a boarding-house mistress from whom grimalkin had stolen various bits of food.
“It’s a good place,” said the boarding-mistress, furtively watching the cat scamper barnwards after her liberation. “These folks are Quakers, and they keep cows.” Then she had hurried away, lest her unneighborly action should be discovered, and thinking herself very kind because she had not killed the animal outright instead of “dropping” it. She little dreamed for what a fate she had reserved it.
“It’s an unhappy old thing. It would rather die than live.”
“Pooh! Would you?”
“No; but then, I am a man.”
“You ain’t! You’re a boy, same’s I am, only bigger. If it was your cat, would you sell it?”
“Yes, for a quarter; and I’ve offered you fifty cents. I’ll make it seventy-five if you will chloroform her for me, and help me with the whole business. But you couldn’t; you’d have to blab.”
“I wouldn’t, neither. I never blabbed in my life. I never told nothin’ when I said I wouldn’t. Ask Fritzy Nunky, when he comes.”
“‘Fritzy Nunky’ would like to have you do this for me; he’s scientific himself. He would have been a great surgeon; haven’t you heard him say so?”
“What’s that to do with this old cat?”