“It’s my cat,” said the lady; “that’s what that is.”
“Well, I’m not making cat pie to-day,” answered our cook. “You take it to its proper table. This is my table.”
At first, “Justice” was generally satisfied with half a crown, but as time went on cats rose. I had hitherto regarded cats as a cheap commodity, and I became surprised at the value attached to them. I began to think seriously of breeding cats as an industry. At the prices current in that village, I could have made an income of thousands.
“Look what your beast has done,” said one irate female, to whom I had been called out in the middle of dinner.
I looked. Thomas Henry appeared to have “done” a mangy, emaciated animal, that must have been far happier dead than alive. Had the poor creature been mine I should have thanked him; but some people never know when they are well off.
“I wouldn’t ha’ taken a five-pun’ note for that cat,” said the lady.
“It’s a matter of opinion,” I replied, “but personally I think you would have been unwise to refuse it. Taking the animal as it stands, I don’t feel inclined to give you more than a shilling for it. If you think you can do better by taking it elsewhere, you do so.”
“He was more like a Christian than a cat,” said the lady.
“I’m not taking dead Christians,” I answered firmly, “and even if I were I wouldn’t give more than a shilling for a specimen like that. You can consider him as a Christian, or you can consider him as a cat; but he’s not worth more than a shilling in either case.”
We settled eventually for eighteenpence.