It is quite a new experience for Box to see a cat sit and wait to be taken in his jaws.
He prefaces his attack with a volley of hoarse dog-oaths....
Grey Puss stands with head low and mouth open; dull thunder rumbles from her throat, and her tail whips restlessly from side to side....
Box, who is unfortunate enough to have the sun full in his eyes, opens his jaws wide and makes a ferocious snap; which the cat evades with a high jump which terminates on his back. Facing backwards on him, she lets fly with fore and back claws simultaneously, combing his flesh time after time from neck to tail.
He howls, and shakes himself, and throws himself down, and rolls over and over; but the moment he rises to his feet, Grey Puss is on his back again.
The ruthless cat-exterminator is driven almost out of his wits with pain, and rushes blindly away, burning with lust for revenge, and raging impotently at such treatment from a much-despised cat, whom he now tries to convince in a plaintive whine that he never meant the slightest harm.
Twice he succeeds in shaking off the vile she-devil; but she is utterly relentless—and so, when the old manure-well appears in sight, he turns there instinctively for help. Without hesitation he tears at the crazy lid with his strong, sharp claws—and plunges through head first, while Grey Puss hops off like the flick of a whip.
A dull plash follows, and a tall spurt of red-brown fluid, emitting an insufferable smell, rises behind him....
Grey Puss sneaks round the opening listening to his splashings; then when no more Box appears, she returns straight home to her kittens.