The cynical cat never would make friends with me, but I did admire her, and I feel how small my life is compared with hers. Here am I, petted and living in plenty, and I can only be grateful and try to be a comfort to my dear friend.
Forepaugh told us that at one of the great shore houses they had a cat called Prometheus.
"Oh," said our cynic, "how I wish we could get at his liver; we should never want for food."
I pondered over that speech, and one day I heard my mistress telling her little niece, who was reading mythology, the story of Prometheus, "who was bound to a rock, vultures feeding upon his ever growing liver." It was very funny for a country bred cat to be versed in mythology. I suppose, however, she heard it, as I often do things my mistress and her friend talk about, and the liver made her remember it.
I was heartily glad to return to Boston, and I made up my mind I would let cats and all the animals I could reach know that they had not met the true philanthropists, but the shams that take up every new cause and dishonor it. For there are many earnest, true philanthropists who spend money and publish nice tracts in behalf of animals, and thus, in a measure, the tracts "do feed" animals; for they open the eyes of those who perhaps have never thought of the matter earnestly.
I determined, after my visit to Beverly, to write this book to help my unfortunate race.
VII
CAT MEMORIES
