“Pass him on!”
“Hack it through!”
“Ware cats!” was the cry, in the midst of which the luckless Fisher minor, finding a return to his old place effectually barred, and wearying of the ceremony of running a gauntlet of all the legs along the table before it was half over, made a
hasty selection of what seemed to him the mildest pair within reach, and clutching at them convulsively, hung on for dear life.
The owner of the limbs in question was Ranger, a prefect of his house and more or less of a grandee at Fellsgarth. As he was unaware of the cause of the excitement around him, this sudden assault from below took him aback, and he started up from his chair in something as near a panic as a Fellsgarth prefect could be capable of. Naturally his parasite followed him.
To Ranger’s credit, he took in the situation rapidly, and did not abuse his opportunities.
“What’s this?” he demanded, lifting up Fisher minor, with his hair all on end and the pocket-comb still in his hand, by the coat-collar. “Who does this belong to?”
No one in particular owned the object in question.
“What are you?” asked the prefect.