Occasionally she blinked her tight-shut eyelids, twisted her head round, and fastened her keen, brassy orbs on the long row of funny little patches of colour on her back. There was every imaginable feline colour-scheme there, and she studied each one separately, noticing any peculiarity of colouring or divergence from type....
Extraordinary.... It seemed to her that she had seen all these little fellows before!
THE FATHER
One afternoon very early in spring a small, snow-white he-cat came strolling carelessly along the road. His ears were thrust forward, betraying his interest in something ahead: he meant to take a walk round the farm, whither the road led ... there was a grey puss there who attracted him!
He ought to have been more cautious, the little white dwarf! A giant cat, a coloured rival, with the demon of passion seething in his blood and hate flaming from his eyes, caught sight of the hare-brained fellow from afar off and straight-way guessed his errand.
With rigid legs, lowered head, and loins held high, he comes rushing from behind ... runs noiselessly over the soft grass at the side of the road and overhauls the other unperceived.
With one spring he plants all his foreclaws deep in the flesh of the smaller cat, who utters a loud wail and collapses on the ground.
The big one maintains his grip on his defeated foe’s shoulder, crushing him ruthlessly in the dust. Then he presses back his torn ears, giving an even more hateful expression to the evil eyes, and lowering his muzzle, gloatingly he howls his song of victory straight into his fallen rival’s face.
For a good quarter of an hour he continues to martyr his victim, who is too terrified to move a muscle; he tears the last shred of self-respect and honour from the coward—then releases him and stalks before him to the farm, without deigning to throw him another glance. He was too despicable a rival, the little white mongrel! The big, spotted he-cat considered it beneath his dignity even to thrash him.
But the little grey puss had other suitors still.... There was the squire’s ginger cat and the bailiff’s wicked old black one; so that both daring and cunning were necessary if one’s courtship was to be a success. At sunset they invaded the farm from every direction, stealing silently through corn or kitchen garden until they reached the garden path by the hedge.