(XVI)
THEY were much spoiled, the two cats; admitted to the dining-room at meal times; often seated one on my right and the other on my left; recalling to me, occasionally, their presence by a light stroke of the paw on my napkin, and watching for tit-bits that I fed them surreptitiously, like a guilty schoolboy, from the tip of my fork.
In recording this, I still farther darken my reputation, which, it seems, is already reputed incorrect and eccentric. I can however criticise a certain member of the Academy, who, having done me the honor of dining at my table, did not refrain from offering to our pussies, even in his own spoon, a little Chantilly cream.
(XVII)
THE following summer was for Pussy Gray a period of absolutely delicious life. With her originality and her foreign air, she had grown almost beautiful, so finely reclad in glossy fawn color. All around, in the cat world, in the gardens and on the roofs, the news had circulated of the presence of this piquant stranger; and candidates for her smiles were numerous; they smirked and serenaded beneath her windows in the balmy nights filled with perfume of honeysuckle and rose.
During September, the two cats experienced, at almost the same time, the joy of motherhood.
Pussy White, it is needless to relate, was already a well known matron. As to Pussy Gray, when her first moments of surprise had passed, she tenderly licked the precious tiny gray kitten, spotted and mottled like a tiger,—her only son.