“Fiddlesticks!” said Stamboul disdainfully. “Mr Cracker, I am afraid your notions are somewhat antiquated.”
“I don’t know what that be,” retorted Cracker. “I just speak as I’ve been taught.”
“True, true, my good fellow, and doubtless with the best intentions; but then, living in the country as you do, one is bound to believe a great many popular and foolish fallacies.”
“I own to it, I own to it, Stamboul,” said Cracker. “Now up north, where I comes from, a cat ain’t looked upon as much of a stunner I ’ssure you, Stamboul. They are just kept as a kind o’ live mousetraps.”
“Yes, I know,” said Stamboul; “and they are starved under the mistaken notion that this makes them catch mice.”
“So they be. And doesn’t it? I know if I were main hungry, and spotted a fine fat rabbit dashing past, I’d soon have he, you bet, and my dinner next, afore he were cold.”
“True, Cracker, but it is also a fact that the better a cat is fed, so long as he is not foolishly pampered and spoiled, the better a hunter he will make. You see, Cracker, to catch mice and rats, a cat has to have a deal of patience, and a world of cunning, and spend long nights of determined watching. To do this he must be in form. If he is half-starved, he is nervous, and tired, and weary; if he be hungry, then instead of watching by the cat’s run, he’ll be thinking more of the cupboard and the last square meal he had, and wondering when he will have another. Or, it is possible enough, instead of watching at all for master rat—and a well-bred cat won’t eat a rat after all—he will prefer to do his hunting in the nearest pigeon-loft or hen-house.”
“There is a deal in what you say,” said Shireen.
“Yes, I can see that,” Warlock put in.
“Well,” said Cracker, “I gives in to superior judgment.”