Some time after, when it stormed very hard, and the young lady upstairs was cold and low-spirited, my mistress invited her down and entertained us with more of Tom's history.
She said Tom was very fastidious in regard to dress. He despised anything ragged, and a dirty swill man (waste merchants they are called now) aroused his deepest anger. Beggars of all ages and sex he ignored. The children's dresses he looked over with a critical eye, and if he detected a rag, he would make mending impossible.
What he would have done in these days of sewing machines cannot be imagined, for he was frantic over a thread of cotton or silk, and only a knot kept the whole work from being torn to pieces by his sharp teeth.
They had one of the best-natured Pats to do their outdoor work that could be found. Pat Ryan was a faithful soul. His one great fault was his love of the bottle.
He very soon gave up the attempt of making friends with Tom, for he answered all his advances with hisses and growls, loud and deep. His tail would swell up, and he would bristle all over when Pat tried to pet him; just as human beings do when they are presumed upon by those they think beneath them in the social scale.
Pat had truly to earn his living by "the sweat of his brow." No modern helps for him. His whole stock in trade consisted of two large firkins on a rough wheel-barrow, to transport the waste that he went from house to house collecting.
He would have thought the millennium had come could he have looked forward to the progress of to-day,—the strong blue carts, with their well-fed high-steppers, and the Patricks of the period, seated with pipes in their mouths, and leather lap-robes, in imitation of their employers, going their rounds, pounding back gates, and bullying the servants if they were not prompt to greet them.
This improvement in the swill business might have made Pat give up his bottle and take to the nearly as demoralizing vice of smoking all the time. But his heavy wheel-barrow had no horse but himself, and the overflowing firkins were a load for him, particularly when, as was often the case, he was as full as his firkins.
It was then that Tom saw his opportunity. When Pat's gait was unsteady, his vision oblique, when he magnified his load by double firkins, double barrow, double people, and double street, Tom would swoop down upon him, and by some dexterous movement, known only to himself, cross Pat's path and overthrow his load. Then, reaching the highest place on the fence, he would look down, as if to say: "Well, you have come to grief. How did you do it?"
Pat was not deceived. Drunk or sober, he recognized his enemy, and gave him the full measure of his wrath. "Ye limb of Satan," he would say, "ye'll get it yet!" Such promises were never realized. Old Cloven-foot only could compete with this clever cat.