"That's just it, Captain Leahy, these ladies are fond of cats, one of them especially," indicating Dee. "So fond of them that yesterday when the whole school was out on the Valley Road taking the dignified walk that is required, what should Miss Caroline Tucker do but rescue a poor little lost kitten, mewing by the roadside, carry it home in her muff without teacher or fellow pupil seeing her, and actually take it to bed with her. But, girls, you tell Captain Leahy about it yourselves," which we did at Miss Peyton's command.
He enjoyed the prank as much as Miss Peyton and laughed until the blue and white china danced on the little shelf.
"And now I know very well what ye have come for. Ye want me to take a boarder."
"Oh, will you, please?" implored Dee.
Bett, having nourished her lone offspring, now carried it in her mouth for Miss Peyton's inspection, and Dee, seeing her, jumped up in great excitement, dropping the box she had been holding so carefully and waking up Oliver Twist in the fall. "Look, look! Bett's kitten looks just like Oliver! I thought it was him at first." Dee was excited and we all excused her English. Oliver began to cry aloud and Bett tore around like one demented.
"Well, Bett, old girl, your baby has been restored to yez. If this don't beat all! On the Valley Road, yesterday, you say? I told that boy to be careful of the hole in the bag, that the runt might fall through it, and so he did. You call him Oliver, you say? Well, that is a handsome name for such a poor mite, but maybe it will give him some ambition to grow oop to it. There's an ould saying: 'If you escape drowning, you'll live to be hanged.' I hope not, Oliver, I hope not."
Now Bett, having one of her babies back, forgave her master and rubbed herself against his good leg; and then such another washing as she did give Oliver before she considered him fit to get into the box that she called home!
The kettle was boiling and the tea soon steeping in the pretty teapot. The Captain put up a little table exactly like the ones on the train and we had the merriest kind of a party.
"Your cats are so fat, Captain, what do you feed them on?" asked Dee, in her element with two cats in her lap.
"An ould frind of mine, who is schteward on a diner saves me all the schraps and the cats live high, higher than their master, by a long shot. But do you know the windfall I have had lately, Miss Peyton?"