“I fought you’d runned away and hid yoursef,” said little Virgie, shaking her curls and dancing up to Eugene. “Come play wif me; I’m all lonesome.”
Eugene was about yielding passively to her request, when he caught sight of a little head peering at him from the underbrush near by.
“Ah, Jacobin!” he said calmly, as he stooped and seized a stone, “away with thee.”
The stone was not thrown; for the sergeant stepped forward, and seized him by the shoulder. “What do you see, boy?” he asked.
“A cat,” replied Eugene.
The sergeant retained his hold of Eugene, and sat him down on the stone seat. “Boy,” he said firmly, “do you stone cats?”
“Always,” returned Eugene. “The reptiles!”
“Why do you do it?”
“Possibly,” said the lad with slight sarcasm, “you would also stone them if you lived where we do. At night my grandfather retires worn out by his exertions during the day. He sleeps; then he springs from his bed, awakened by a cry for help from a drowning child. It is a cat! He becomes angry; he lifts the window, and throws a morsel of coal at the supposed drowning one. He again retires. He again sleeps. This time a woman shrieks from a burning house. He again hurls himself from the bed. Once more it is but a cat. He throws two morsels of coal, and ensconces himself between the blankets. In succession he is aroused by murderers, by burglars, by a chorus of men’s voices, by a famous prima donna; and all is produced by those wretches of cats. He says that he has travelled in many lands, and that he has heard the voices of many cats; but for maliciousness and range of tones these Boston cats eclipse all others.”