“I would appoint Doctor Thomas Traddles—” began Rob, but got no further. There was a storm of applause, and the meeting saw the remarkable spectacle of a second election by acclaim, as it is called. Tommy Traddles was thus appointed Purrington’s first mayor.
“Why wouldn’t you serve, Ban-Ban?” asked Bidelia, suspiciously.
Ban-Ban faced the meeting. His whiskers quivered, his fur arose, and his breath came quick and short as it always did when he was stirred.
“My friends,” he said, and the Purrers turned to look at him; every cat there caught instantly the emotion in his voice. “My friends,” Ban-Ban said, “I must tell you why I refused the honour which you would have done me. To-night, when Rob and Lois go home Kiku-san and I are going with them.”
Dead silence fell upon the meeting at these words, and from its outer edge a long moo broke from Brindle like a sob. Then a growl ran around the circle, deepening into a louder growl, like thunder, and every cat sprang to his feet in wrath and dismay.
“Going back on us like that?” demanded Wutz-Butz, tragically.
“Oh, Bannie!” said Madam Laura, but the words contained volumes, and Bidelia sobbed into her party-coloured paws, while every kitten present broke into a chorus of pathetic mews. It was most moving, and Ban-Ban trembled from head to foot.
“Bidelia sobbed.”
“Dear friends, listen,” he said. “I am not deserting you, as Wutz-Butz seems to think. Every week I shall come here with Rob and Lois—they promise faithfully to bring us, Kiku and me. I planned this city; all summer I have here, leaving the boy I owned—” Rob stared at this way of putting it—“to miss me and mourn for me, and Kiku has done likewise with his girl. I have brought them here to be the aid and reliance of us all. They love us; we have had the happiest home with them all our lives, and we miss them. They are most unhappy without us—do you not think, dear Purrers, considering that every week Rob and Lois are coming here, that all their lives they are going to protect and befriend this city of cats, that you can repay them to a tiny degree by consenting to give up to them two of your number?”