Mr. Neatby was very busy. He was taking extra duty for a master who was ill, and for three or four days after the arrival of the second kitten really had not a moment to call his own, so, as Mrs. Vyner seemed to take quite kindly to the new arrivals—only taking care to charge her lodger an extra quart of milk daily for their maintenance—he almost forgot their existence.
By Saturday evening he had accumulated a mass of mid-term examination work to correct, and directly after supper set himself down to it, with four clear hours before him, for he often worked till after midnight.
His lamp was trimmed, his fire burned brightly, and one kitten, the first, sat purring on the hearth. That, and the scratching of Mr. Neatby’s pen as he corrected the generally mistaken views of boys as to the nature of an element, were the only sounds till there came a thunderous rap outside, and the door-bell pealed loudly.
Mr. Neatby frowned, but never looked up from his corrections. He had not been long at the school, and was not upon intimate terms with any of the masters, so that it was hardly likely to be a caller for him. He heard somebody open the front door, then some vehicle drive away. A moment later there was a knock at his door, and Jemima, Mrs. Vyner’s niece, came in, bearing a hamper.
“Please, sir, this ’ave just come by rail; there wasn’t nothing to pay.”
“Very well,” Mr. Neatby answered without looking up; “put it down, please; I can’t attend to it just now.”
Jemima did as she was told, and once more silence settled upon the room.
But not for long. Kitten number one got restless; it walked round and round the hamper, and sniffed and mewed, and mewed and sniffed, with irritating persistency. Moreover, a curious muffled echo seemed to accompany its mewing. Mr. Neatby bore it for five minutes, then pushed back his chair, caught the disturbing kitten by the scruff of its neck, and bore it to the top of the kitchen stairs, calling to Jemima to take it down. That young lady obeyed his summons, taking the kitten tenderly into her arms with many endearments; but all the same she remarked to her aunt, “Well, I do think as ’e might manage to look after one on ’em ’isself, that I do.”
Mr. Neatby went back to his papers and corrected with more vigor than before; but, in spite of his haste, in spite of his absorption, the muffled mewing continued.
At last he laid down his pen and listened. “Surely,” he thought, “it can’t sound like that from downstairs. I must have got the sound on my nerves; it’s really most annoying.” It was annoying; it grew louder and louder till it seemed at his very side.