“But,” I implored, “I’m not writing about the ancestorial cat, plague take her! It is the history of the present puss, with glimpses of the coming cat, that I wish to give.”
“Never mind,” said he, “say something; people expect it.”
“It will be so dry,” I continued.
“Then make it all the shorter.”
Heigho! it is very like shoving a man forward by the shoulder, and asking him to make a speech, when he feels that he can’t say Bo! to a goose; or putting a fiddle into one’s hand, and asking him for a selection from his favourite opera, when he isn’t in the humour to play; when, in fact, the fiddle feels like a pair of bellows, and the bow as heavy as the kitchen poker. Origin and antiquity indeed! I dreamt about origin and antiquity all night, and had origin and antiquity on the brain for a week after. However, needs must when the devil—hem! I mean one’s publisher—drives.
Determined, therefore, to write a most learned essay on the origin and antiquity of the D. C., I ordered a cab one morning, and—
“Where for?” says Cabby, and—
“British Museum,” says I.
Arrived at the reading room—N.B. I had taken a ream of foolscap with me, a box of Gillott’s extra fine, and my brandy-flask filled (for this once only) with ink—“I want,” said I, to a man who came at my beck, “all the books you may have in this little place, which may bear reference directly or indirectly to the subject of cats. Cats, sir,” I repeated more emphatically, because I thought he smiled. “Bring Herodotus, the father of cat-history, and Lady Cust, the mother of ditto; bring Jardine, and Rüppel, and Pennant, and Bell; also Temminck, Lonnini, and Hietro dello Valli; bring Daubenton the Egyptian, and Sulliman the Persian, Professor Owen, the erudite Darwin, and the learned Faust, and—Mephistopheles too, if procurable; and, look here, just throw in a few Russian, Hungarian, and Turkish authorities, and don’t forget to bring lexicons to match.” The man groaned, and went for a barrow. Half an hour afterwards I was seated at my desk, and if ever book-man had cause for joy, I was that individual. The illustrious authorities were piled so high above me, that an accident would have resulted in burial alive; they were behind me, before me, I sat upon them, and I had them for footstools. But still I was not happy. I leant my head on the ream of foolscap, and tried to compose myself before I composed anything else. Presently I was roused from my reverie, by hearing some one close alongside of me make the remark, “Hem! hem!” clearing his throat as if to speak. On looking up, I beheld on the desk before me the queerest little old man ever I saw in my life. Taking him all and all, he couldn’t have been anything like a yard long. His legs, not longer nor thicker than sheep shears, were encased in silken hose and knee-breeches; his shrivelled body bedecked in tight-fitting velveteens, with long hair tied in a cue and worn as a tail, while his face looked for all the world like a piece of ancient parchment, which had got accidentally wet, and been dried before the fire. And he sat with one leg crossed over his knee, on a folio nearly as big as himself, and took snuff.
“Ahem!” he remarked again, “take your pen, sir, and write.”