I had given myself such a vigorous scrubbing while up-stairs that my fur was stuck together in little tufts all over my body; but Miss Dorothy picked me up and smoothed it all out, and put a pretty fresh ribbon around my neck.
Then Dr. Fogg took me for a while, and after he had looked me all over he said I was a good healthy cat.
“How can you tell?” said Miss Dorothy.
“Because her nostrils are cold and moist,” was the reply. “A sick or famished cat has dry, hot nostrils. This cat also has many good points,” added the doctor: “short nose, short thick tail, short round ears and soft silken fur.”
“You are a lover of cats, I take it, or you would not be so well versed in cat-lore,” said Miss Dorothy, with evident pleasure.
“You would think so if you could see my Remus,” replied the doctor, the while gently stroking my back. “I wouldn’t part with him for a fortune. Better than any medicine to a restless overworked mind is a sleek healthy cat for a bed-fellow, for the electricity with which his fur is charged will induce sleep when all other means fail.”
“How perfectly wonderful,” said Miss Dorothy. “I must get one for papa. Where did you get Remus?”
“Remus,” said the doctor, “was one of a pair of black kittens that belonged to old Black Betty at the college. Betty had the mange several times, but the students always cured her by rubbing her sores with a mixture of lard and sulphur, which she would immediately lick off. During her last attack, however, she seemed to have a presentiment that her hour had come. One morning, while my father was lecturing to the students, Betty brought in one of her kittens, laid it at his feet, looked up into his face and mewed. Then she went and fetched the other, and repeated the same action, after which she returned to her basket, and ten minutes later the janitor found her dead. Father regarded those kittens as a sacred trust, and insisted that both be kept in our house; so sister appropriated one, and I the other; and this is how I came into possession of Remus.”
When the doctor began to talk about the things that they did at the college, I expected to hear quite a different story. I am glad now to know that they do some other things for cats in colleges besides dissecting them.
“By the way,” said Miss Dorothy, “I read in to-day’s paper that in some place where diphtheria is raging, all the cats have been killed because it is supposed that they spread the disease. And in another place where the smallpox has broken out, the health officer proposes that it is necessary to kill off all the stray and homeless cats and dogs before the disease can be stamped out. What do you think of that?”