“Do you drown them here?” asked Barry.
“Yes; do you s’pose I’d navigate ’em out to the Atlantic?”
“And the lobster pens are close by,” observed Barry; “disgusting!”
The old man shrugged his shoulders.
“You’ll soon have that source of income cut off,” continued Barry.
“What’ll be cut off?”
“Your cat money. Law! how deaf the old creature is! The city is goin to have a gas box.”
“An’ what kind of a union is there between the city, an’ gas, an’ cats?” inquired the old man, in quiet exasperation.
“Union and disunion. In future anyone having a cat to destroy can take it to the City Hall. They’ve given a big room to the S. P. C. You deliver your sick cat, or your old cat, or your superfluous cat, and a man puts her in a big box with a juicy piece of meat. The gas is turned on, pussy eats her meat, gets sleepy, lies down, and dies.”
The old fisherman pounded the table with his fist. “An’ who’s at the bottom of that hugger-mugger business?”