“These are our house cats,” said the sergeant, “promoted from the park to home service on account of old age. Come in, pussies, and have some supper.”
The tortoiseshell pair before entering the house walked purringly around the sergeant, and rubbed themselves against his legs.
“It’s wonderful what affection the creatures have,” he said musingly, as he took his pipe from his mouth, and looked down at them. “Don’t you like dumb animals, boy?”
“I had a pony in France that I rather cared for,” said Eugene, “and I like hunting-dogs imperfectly well.”
“But you don’t understand dumb creatures,” said the sergeant. “I can tell by the way that you speak that you don’t. There’s a whole book of knowledge shut up from you, boy. Some day perhaps it will be opened, and you’ll enjoy life more from knowing that there are more live things to enjoy it and to like you than you have had any suspicion of. Let’s go in now. I guess the missis has got things tidied.”
Mrs. Hardy was standing on the porch, looking like a girl with her slim figure and white gown.
“Would you like to play some games?” she asked her guest softly.
He showed a polite pleasure at the proposal, and during the next two hours Mrs. Hardy initiated him into the mysteries of some American parlor amusements that he had never before heard of.
When Virtue Ann came for him, his cheeks were flushed and his face happy. He looked like a different boy from the little careworn creature that had arrived there a few hours earlier.