It was a very hasty toilet that the travellers made. Ban-Ban sprang to his feet, shook out the places in his fur which his rapid licking had flattened, and cried: “Come on, Kiku; I won’t wait another minute!”
Kiku-san arose, shook himself also, and said: “You don’t suppose I want to wait, do you? Lois is just on the other side of that fence!” Cold print cannot convey the happiness in white Kiku-san’s voice.
They sprang together to the top of the fence. Here they paused a moment to look with purring hearts down on the old garden. There was the pink-bordered flower-bed; among its fragrant pinks Kiku-san had always loved to take his nap after lunch, when the shadow rested there. And there was the fountain, on the edge of which Ban-Ban had loved to sit and see his saucy short face reflected in the water, and from which he had been rescued once, just in time, in his early kittenhood. And there, running like colts around the corner of the house, came Lois and Rob!
That sight brought the cats down from the fence in a twinkling, and side by side they ran forward, backs and tails up, joy sparkling on their very whisker-tips. Rob and Lois stopped abruptly and gazed at the cats.
Then the garden rang with their shout: “It’s Kiku! Kiku-san and Bannie-Ban!” screamed Lois. “Kiku, my darling, Kiku, you lamb-cat, where have you been all this time?”
She gathered the happy, purring white creature into her arms and showered kisses on him, murmuring the while, too delighted to utter words. And Kiku-san rubbed his face against Lois’s, and purred and purred, and gave little mews and coos of rapture, till Lois knew the truth—that he was as glad to see her again as she was to get him back.
Rob’s face turned dark red with emotion when he saw Ban-Ban, whom he had given up as dead or lost for ever. “Why, Ban-Ban!” he managed to say, but he could hardly speak.
Ban-Ban spread his fore feet
“She gathered the happy, purring white creature into her arms.”