"Poor pussy," said Cecilia. "You look like I feel when I'm with them what have social advantages. Poor pussy!" She was very tender toward it. She leaned above it, then picked it up. "I will bribe Annie, with dresses, to feed it," she thought. The cat began to be violently ill. Cecilia put it down.
"I say!" came in a rather husky voice, "Pussy needs some Mothersill's, doesn't she?"
Cecilia didn't understand the allusion, but she looked up smiling. The voice had been attractively hearty. After she looked up, she gasped.
"What are you going to do with it?" went on the young man.
"I thought I'd take it to my school and get the hired girl,—I mean maid,—to feed it."
"No," objected K. Stuyvesant; "it's poisoned. We'll take it to a drug store and get them to kill it."
"Oh, no!" said Cecilia.
"See here," said the boy, "the cat will die. I've had dogs of mine poisoned. It's the most merciful thing to have it killed. It'll only suffer and drag its life out if you take it home."
"I see," said Cecilia. "I suppose you know. It's just as you say."
"Good kid," he commented. His comment called forth an agony and elation. Cecilia wished for the longer dresses with which she'd come to school. The boy picked up the cat gently and wrapped his handkerchief about it.