“See,” he continued, jumping on the top of a kind of wooden fence, which sailors call the bulwarks, that ran round, what I then called the lid (deck) of the ship. “See! speak the word, and I shall rid you for ever of my hateful presence!”
I was very much afraid then.
I did not want to see this Thomas cat drowned before my eyes, for although he was very black, I could not help noticing that he was comely.
“Oh,” I cried, “come down from off that fearful fence and I will forgive you, perhaps even take you into favour.”
Well, Warlock, strange though it may appear, in three minutes’ time this Thomas cat and I were as good friends as if we had known each other for years.
“You are very lovely,” he said. “Strange how extremes meet, for I have been told that I am quite ugly. Your coat is snow-white, mine is like the raven’s wing. Your fur is long and soft and silky, my hair is short and rough, and there are brown holes burned in it here and there, where sailors have dropped the ashes from their pipes. You are doubtless as spotless in character as you are in coat; but—well, Shireen, the cook has sometimes hinted to me that as far as my ethics are concerned I—I am not strictly honest. Sometimes the cook has hinted that to me by word of mouth, at other times, Shireen, with a wooden ladle.”
“But come,” he added, “let me show you round the ship.”
“May I ask your name,” I said; “you already know mine?”
“My name is Tom.”
“A very uncommon name, I daresay.”