FOOTNOTES:
[AB] Fraser's Magazine, 1852.
THE CAT'S PILGRIMAGE.
1850.
PART I.
'It is all very fine,' said the Cat, yawning, and stretching herself against the fender, 'but it is rather a bore; I don't see the use of it.' She raised herself, and arranging her tail into a ring, and seating herself in the middle of it, with her fore paws in a straight line from her shoulders, at right angles to the hearth-rug, she looked pensively at the fire. 'It is very odd,' she went on, 'there is my poor Tom; he is gone. I saw him stretched out in the yard. I spoke to him, and he took no notice of me. He won't, I suppose, ever any more, for they put him under the earth. Nice fellow he was. It is wonderful how little one cares about it. So many jolly evenings we spent together; and now I seem to get on quite as well without him. I wonder what has become of him; and my last children, too, what has become of them? What are we here for? I would ask the men, only they are so conceited and stupid they can't understand what we say. I hear them droning away, teaching their little ones every day; telling them to be good, and to do what they are bid, and all that. Nobody ever tells me to do anything; if they do I don't do it, and I am very good. I wonder whether I should be any better if I minded more. I'll ask the Dog.'
'Dog,' said she, to a little fat spaniel coiled up on a mat like a lady's muff with a head and tail stuck on to it, 'Dog, what do you make of it all?'
The Dog faintly opened his languid eyes, looked sleepily at the Cat for a moment, and dropped them again.
'Dog,' she said, 'I want to talk to you; don't go to sleep. Can't you answer a civil question?'