"My fault, I'm sure," said Tabby Green, for she was such a well-bred kitty that no dog, even if he had the finest manners in the world, could be more courteous than she.
Then, "Why, bless me!" she exclaimed. "Can it be you, dear Bobby Gordon? How glad I am to see you once again!"
And to show how pleased she was, poor Tabby rubbed her thin sides against the good dog's legs.
Together they crouched under the arch of the high stone steps, where, from a grating in the sidewalk, came a breath of good warm air. It was close to somebody's furnace room, and only such poor wandering creatures as the hungry cat and the dog who had known better days can appreciate the air from a warm cellar.
They sat close together and Tabby tried to purr, but she was nearly dead and purr she could not.
"There, there!" soothed Bobby Gordon, as he licked the snow from poor kitty's back in the gentlest way. "I wouldn't purr. It's very kind of you to try, but it's a bad thing to do in the open air. They say it hurts the voice."
"And I have no voice left these days," admitted Tabby sadly. "Really, if it were not for these warm cellar-ways and the few stray scraps of food that one finds in such shocking places, I wouldn't be alive."
"But," said Bob, "you're just a poor tramp cat, and no one's bound to kill you. I'm a dog without a collar, all alone and afraid to be seen. I can't let any one come near for fear they'll tell the officers about me. Once I had a collar—such a beauty, too! But it came off within a week of my great misfortune. You know my master went away, and the wicked people in the house were going to get rid of me. I knew it. I wasn't wanted any more. I had to go."
Great tears stood in Bobby Gordon's eyes but he brushed them away with his paw.
Tabby was overcome. In all her wanderings she had never met a case so sad.