Then Tom and I went and had a very nice little supper, and there was always more than we could eat, so the men on watch had some too.
“Well, that is good,” said Tabby. “I’ve tried my hand at trout fishing, but I never heard of flying-fish catching like that before.”
“Trout fishing,” said Shireen, “is what I should call mere bottom fishing.”
“Yes, and you do go to the bottom too, with a plump.”
Shireen laughed.
“It may be all very well for short-haired Tabbies like you, my dear,” she remarked. “But, la! to get my jacket wet would entirely spoil it; besides, you know, I’m not so young as you. If I got wet I should be laid up with the rheumatics for a month to a dead certainty. Heigho! it might be a dead certainty too, though that, children, is only my little joke. But tell us Tabby, how you got on fishing.”
Tabby sat up for a moment, and Dick flew off her back, crying,—
“I say, I say, what is it? you r-r-rascal!”
“Well,” said Tabby, “it wasn’t with me that the catching of trout originated, nor with Warlock either. It happened thus. In a cottage near the forest, a year or two ago, there came an old maiden lady to live, who was very fond indeed of cats. She had three altogether, and she very wisely permitted them to roam about at the freedom of their own will. Two of her cats were ladies, the other was a fine red fellow, of the name of Joe.
“The gamekeepers said that Joe was a noted thief, and that he caught their birds and their leverets also, and that they would shoot him on sight. When the old lady heard this, she went straight to the keepers’ huts by the forest edge. Joe was trotting by her side, but as soon as they were within fifty yards of the cottages, Joe got up on his mistress’s shoulder. She was a strong old lady, and armed with a two-horse power umbrella in one hand, and a big book in the other.