“Yes; what was it?” she says.
“What was it?” I says. “There; go to sleep again,” I says; for I felt quite rusty to think anybody else could sleep through such a row, while I couldn’t.
“Meyow—meyow—wow—wow-w-w-w,” goes the music again.
“Two on ’em,” I says, as I lay listening, and there it went on getting louder and louder every moment, both sides and over the way, and up and down the street, till I’m blest if I could stand it any longer.
“Oh, you beauties,” I says; “if I only had a gun.” And then I lay there, listening and wondering whether I mightn’t just as well get up and have a pipe; and at last of all, because I couldn’t stand it any longer, I gets up, goes to the window, opens it softly, and says—
“Ssh!”
Lor’ bless you! you might just as well have said nothing, for there they were a-going it all round to that degree, that it was something awful, and I stood there half dressed, and leaning out of the window, wondering what was best to be done. There was no mistake about it; there they were, cats of all sorts and sizes, and of all kinds of voices—some was very shrill, some very hoarse, and some round and deep-toned, and meller. Now and then some one would open a winder, and cry, “Ssh,” same as I did, but as soon as they smelt what a sharp frost it was, they shut them down again, and at last I did the same, and made up my mind as I crept into bed again, as I’d go where there was no cats.
Yes, that was a capital idea, that was—to move to a place where there was no cats, and on the strength of that determination, I went off fast asleep.
Next morning over my breakfast, I got thinking, and come to the conclusion, that I’d cut myself out a bit of a job. Where was I to get a little house or lodgings where there was no cats, for were not the happy, domestic creatures everywhere? No; that was of no use, but I warn’t going to stand having my rest broken night after night in that way; so I mounted a trap, for I’d made up my mind, that out of revenge, I’d have a full-sized railway rug lined with scarlet cloth, while the rug itself should be of fur.
First night I sets my trap, I baited it with a bit of herring. Goes next morning and found the herring had been dragged out at the side, and the trap warn’t sprung. Sets it next night, baited with two sprats; goes next morning to find ’em gone, but no pussy. And so I went on, week after week, till I got tired out, and tried poison, which hit the wrong game, and killed our neighbour’s tarrier dog. Then I thought I’d try an air-gun, but somehow or another there was a fault in that gun, for it wouldn’t shoot straight, and I never hit one of the nuisances. A regular powder-and-shot gun I couldn’t try, because it would have spoken so loud, that all the neighbours would have heard and known who was killing the cats.