After the tramp had received a scolding from each one of the family, and been thoroughly cleansed and his wounds dressed, he sat down a few feet from his lawful wife and moaned and cried for an hour or more, without once attracting a look of pity from her. After that he approached Nellie and attempted to ask her forgiveness for his absence upon some fictitious ground, but that faithful one raised herself upon her hind legs, spat upon the battered tramp and then deliberately beat him with her paws and scratched him with her claws until he slunk out of the room, a well reproved if not a better Cat. For more than a week, every time Tom made overtures looking toward a reconciliation, Nellie repeated her chastisement, and I fully believe if any other Maltese Tom had presented himself during that time, she would have taught Tom a lesson which he would have remembered to the end of his life, by adopting him in Tom's place, and, with his assistance, driven out upon the charity of a cold world, her wayward and presumably unfaithful consort. But, although we refused to intercede for him with Nellie, in the course of time Tom was partly forgiven and was again kept under the watchful eye of Nellie.
Three months later the vagabond again forgot his marriage vows and disappeared. This time we gave him up for lost, as he did not return for a month. Considering him a thing of the beautiful past, I bought another Tom and brought him home to Nellie. Singularly enough, the two did not fraternize, although it was not the fault of the new Tom, and Nellie remained, as she supposed, a widow, with her kittens as her constant care. Upon them she lavished all of her affections, spitting at and boxing the new Tom whenever he approached them.
One fine day, to our utter astonishment, the scoundrel, Tom, strolled in upon the scene as nonchalantly as if he had not been off on a long protracted cruise. But this time he was covered with sores, and had, in addition, the mange. He was a sorry-looking Tom, and an animal to avoid. Even in that condition, I am sure, Nellie would have nursed him and doctored him until he recovered, had he been faithful to her. But there was no hope of it now. She had evidently been thinking deeply about the newcomer, and was making comparisons.
At first he showed contrition, but when he discovered the new Tom, who he supposed had assumed his duties in the household, he did not become an Enoch Arden, but, with fire in his evil eye and without making proper inquiries concerning Nellie's unexceptionable conduct, with a great bologna sausage of a fuzzy tail and a fearful shriek for vengeance, he made for Tom Number Two with the speed of lightning, in the stereotyped manner of an outraged husband whose lapses of fealty and so on are forgotten in the greater sin of an interloper.
What might have become of the innocent new fellow was illustrated in the story of the Kilkenny cats, with this difference, that one of the two would have been left on the earth, and it wouldn't have been the new fellow, for Tom was the maddest Cat you ever saw. When the tocsin of war was sounded by the mangy deserter, Nellie sprang for him and there ensued a battle royal. There was war to the knife, from the point to the hilt. The screams of the combatants were terrific, and the dining-room floor was covered with a constantly accumulating mass of Maltese fur. In both the new Tom and Nellie, who, alone, was a host in herself, the mangy Tom found more than his match, and he was beaten, torn, wounded at every point, and a total wreck when he scurried out of the house and took his sorrowful way down the street, toward the dock at the foot of Hubert street. Whether or not he did the best thing he could have done under the circumstances, and went and drowned himself, is more original Tom, by the side of Nellie, never knew him more, for the new fellow thereafter succeeded to his lares and penates and Nellie and he lived happily together until Tom number two was shot by some cruel person. After that Nellie mourned his loss and refused to be comforted with another, although, of course, there were many Toms who would have lain down and died for her. She lived but a short time after the death of her second husband, and died regretted by all of us.
[V.]
MEMORY AND INTELLIGENCE.
We find, upon looking closely and impartially into our natural gifts, that it is memory that fails and proves treacherous to us more frequently than any other faculty, and as we go on with life, the fact becomes more and more apparent. With the Cat, memory never fails her. The dog may fail to find his way home, particularly the little dog, but the Cat, never.
No more conclusive testimony concerning the memory and intelligence of the Cat can be given to a doubting world than that contained in the following story from the columns of the New York Press. It is also illustrative of the love of persons as well as places, by the feline. It is recited in a straightforward manner, and I have no doubt of its truthfulness. At any rate, if the reader has his doubts, he can readily, at the cost of a few cents, paid to Uncle Sam in postage stamps, satisfy himself concerning the story, for names are given and the address is plain. "Fritz Heath," says the narrator, "is the noble son of a worthy mother, and lives in Syracuse, N.Y. Fritz is a large gray and white tomcat. Fritz and his mother are the proteges of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Heath. Mr. Heath is a telegraph operator in the employ of the New York Central Railroad. Both Fritz and Gyp are cats of unusual size and beauty. Fritz will roll over, jump through a hoop and turn somersaults at command. He also has the habit of jumping up to catch the smooth top of the dining-table with his paws and swinging suspended, while he surveys the prospects of his coming dinner. Two years ago there was mourning in the home of Heath. Fritz had suddenly disappeared. At night Gyp came into the house, sniffed at the basket, which she and Fritz had occupied together since the latter's kittenhood, and walked disconsolately away. The Heath family searched diligently, but Fritz could not be found.