“We’ll get one here in time,” said the sergeant. “Now, if you want to inspect the rest of my menagerie, let us go back to the bridge.”
“What have you there?” asked Eugene as they paced slowly up the path.
“A flock of twenty-one geese. See, there they are out on the marshes. Hello, they’re having a quarrel with the wild geese.”
“Have you wild ones also?”
“A few only. Hear how they’re screaming. What tempers! I’ll whistle, and perhaps I’ll catch their attention.”
The sergeant whistled in vain. The wind was blowing over the marshes, and the geese were too much engaged in their dispute to heed his voice that only reached them faintly.
“They remind me of the prairie fowl out West,” said the sergeant. “They were mighty fond of dancing round each other, but they always wound up with a row. Now, I haven’t anything more to show you this morning. I believe I’ll walk up Boylston Street way with you a bit. Come over some feeding-time to see these creatures. They’re more interesting then. Don’t bring your nurse, though, down here. These cats just hate women.”
“For the same reason that the king does?” asked Eugene.
“Yes; they’ve mostly been turned out-of-doors by women, and they don’t forget it. I’m sorry it’s so, for I am fond of women myself; but animals, and cats especially, don’t forget an injury; that is, the most of them don’t. They’re very like us, some forgive and some don’t; and they’re just as full of contradictions as we are. Some of them will put up with things from the few people they like best that they won’t put up with from a stranger. For instance, a dog will let his master cuff him round, when he’d bite a stranger that would lay a finger on him. That’s just the way we are with our own families. My wife and I will take things from each other that we wouldn’t from other people. By the way, there are some fine boys coming along that I’d like to introduce you to. Do you see them? That is a grand fellow, that one with the foot-ball under his arm.”
Eugene shrank back, and made a gesture of dissent.