Suddenly the tortured and writhing animal uttered a scream of blood-curdling agony and lunged at Miss Nebeker’s ankles with tooth and claw.
She was in the midst of the passage where the dying Jerseyman lifts himself on his elbow and calls for his trusty Jewsharp:
“Gi’ me my juice-harp, Sarah Ann——” she was saying, when of a sudden she screamed louder than the cat and bounded into the air, sending her manuscript in fluttering leaves all over the room.
The cat, with level tail and fiery eyes, sailed through the door-way into the hall, and went as if possessed of a devil, bounding up the stairway to Mrs. Philpot’s room.
Congratulations were in order, and Lucas insisted upon bellowing in Miss Nebeker’s ear his appreciation of the powerful effect produced by the last scene in the little drama.
“If our friends who are out in this rain are finding anything half as entertaining,” he thundered, “they needn’t mind the drenching.”
“But I’m bitten, I’m scratched, I’m hurt,” she exclaimed.
Lucas suddenly realized the brutality of his attitude, and hastened to rectify it by collecting the leaves of her manuscript and handing them to her.
“I beg pardon,” he said sincerely, “I hope you are not hurt much.”
“Just like a cat,” she cried, “always under somebody’s feet! I do despise them!”