Ah! Warlock, yes, that I know is true. But think how different a dog’s life is from that of a poor cat. We cats have got to be wise, Warlock, and we’ve got to be wily, for though we have not got the brand of Cain upon our brows, still almost everybody who meets us wants to kill us.
It was on this very subject that only last Sunday I was conversing with the parson’s big tom-cat.
“I’m so much used to travelling now, Tom,” I said, “having had a spell of over twenty years of it, that I don’t mind where I go; but if I were not a travelling cat I should feel very much from home in a new house, not knowing the outs and ins of it, the upstairs and the down, and where to get food, where to watch for mice, and the drains to run into when the school children come past; or the trees to run up when the butcher’s dog comes round the corner.”
“Well, for many reasons,” said Tom in answer, “I like dogs well enough. But I wouldn’t like to be a dog, mind you, Shireen. Now look at me for example. I am the parson’s cat to be sure, and being a parson’s cat people might think I was under some restrictions. Not a bit of it, Shireen. I’m my own master.
“Now, look for example, at the Saint Bernard dog Dumpling—an honest contented great fellow he is—but bless you, Shireen, he isn’t free. But I am. Dumpling can’t do what he pleases—I can. I can go to bed when I like, rise when I like, and eat and drink when, where, and what I choose. Dumpling can’t. Really, Shireen, my old friend, I can forgive Dumpling for chasing me into the apple tree last Sunday, when I think of the dull life a dog leads, and how few are his joys compared to mine. Poor Dumpling needs the servants to wait upon him. He can’t walk a couple of miles by himself and be sure of finding his way back, or sure of not getting into a row, getting stolen, or some other accident equally ridiculous.
“The other day, Shireen, if you’ll take my word for it, Dumpling actually sat on the doorstep for two hours in the pouring, pitiless rain till his great shaggy coat was soaked to the skin, because, forsooth, he didn’t know how to get the door opened. Would a cat have done that? No, a cat would have walked politely up to the first kind-faced passenger that came along and asked him to be good enough to ring the bell, and the thing would have been done. Could Dumpling unlatch a door or catch a mouse? Not to save his life. Could he climb a tree and examine a sparrow’s nest? Not he. Could he find his way home over the tiles on a dark night? A pretty figure he would cut if he were only going to try. No, Shireen, dogs have their uses, but they’re not in the same standard with cats.”
Well, Warlock, mind these are Tom’s views and not mine: but as I was telling you all, I found myself safe on board the Venom at last, and that same afternoon we sailed away to the south.
Master being still somewhat of an invalid, the doctor had given him and me the use of his cabin, he himself sleeping at night inside a canvas screen on the main deck.
The Venom, I must tell you, wasn’t a very large ship, and she was engaged in what fighting human-sailors called the suppression of the slave trade. Not that I meant to trouble my head very much about any such nonsense, only in one way it appealed to us; it would make our passage down to the far-off Cape of Good Hope and so home to England a very much longer one.
“You see,” the captain said to my soldier Edgar on the quarter-deck the first day, “we are awfully glad to have you with us, but we can’t hurry even on your account.”