"Is Snuff the cat's name?" asked the mother of the Curlytops.
"Yes," answered Mrs. Watson. "It is just the color of snuff, you see, a sort of yellowish brown. Many Persian cats have that color, I'm told. Anyhow this lady—I've forgotten her name—said she saw that Uncle Toby loved animals, as he had so many of them, so she asked him to keep her cat."
"And Uncle Toby did," remarked Mrs. Martin.
"Uncle Toby surely did!" declared the housekeeper. "It seemed he couldn't say 'no' where animals were concerned. By this time the house began to be rather overrun with pets, so he built this room out of the dining room, with special cages—cubby-holes I call 'em—for the pets. I did think Snuff would be the last one, but after that came the white mice and rats."
"It's usually the other way about," said Mrs. Martin, with a smile. "When the cat comes the mice go. But this time the mice came after the cat arrived."
"Yes," agreed the housekeeper. "Snuff, the cat, and the white mice—I don't know their names—are great friends. The mice and rats belonged to a boy down the street. His family moved to another state last summer, and his folks made him get rid of the mice. He brought them to Uncle Toby, and of course Uncle Toby couldn't say no, so he kept them. It was then I first threatened to leave. The house was too full of animals."
"But you didn't go," said Mrs. Martin.
"No, I stayed on, because Uncle Toby begged me to, and he said he wouldn't add to his collection. But then came the pigeons. They were brought by another boy, whose folks moved away and he couldn't keep 'em any more. I didn't so much mind the pigeons, as they stay out in the barn. But we certainly had a houseful of pets! After a while I got rather to liking them, and Uncle Toby was very fond of 'em, and taught 'em many tricks."
"But finally, as you know from the letter he wrote you, he decided to take a long trip, and perhaps he may never come back, if he finds he likes it in South America. So he decided to ask you to take charge of his collection, and I said I'd stay until you arrived, as Uncle Toby had to leave in a hurry, to catch a ship that was sailing for South America."
"Why did he go there?" asked Mr. Martin.