“‘Ah, well,’ he adds, giving himself a shake, ‘there’s nothing else for it, I must put my trust in Providence, it’s pulled me through before: here goes.’
“He assumes an aspect of chastened sorrow, and trots along with a demure and saddened step. It is evident he wishes to convey the idea that he has been out all night on work connected with the Vigilance Association, and is now returning home sick at heart because of the sights that he has seen.
“He squirms in, unnoticed, through a window, and has just time to give himself a hurried lick down before he hears the cook’s step on the stairs. When she enters the kitchen he is curled up on the hearthrug, fast asleep. The opening of the shutters awakes him. He rises and comes forward, yawning and stretching himself.
“‘Dear me, is it morning, then?’ he says drowsily. ‘Heigh-ho! I’ve had such a lovely sleep, cook; and such a beautiful dream about poor mother.’
“Cats! do you call them? Why, they are Christians in everything except the number of legs.”
“They certainly are,” I responded, “wonderfully cunning little animals, and it is not by their moral and religious instincts alone that they are so closely linked to man; the marvellous ability they display in taking care of ‘number one’ is worthy of the human race itself. Some friends of mine had a cat, a big black Tom: they have got half of him still. They had reared him from a kitten, and, in their homely, undemonstrative way, they liked him. There was nothing, however, approaching passion on either side.
“One day a Chinchilla came to live in the neighbourhood, under the charge of an elderly spinster, and the two cats met at a garden wall party.
“‘What sort of diggings have you got?’ asked the Chinchilla.
“‘Oh, pretty fair.’
“‘Nice people?’