HOMELESS BLACK-AND-TAN.
LUCKY CHANCE CALL.
TOOTING GOOD SAMARITAN.
When I arrived home, Marjorie ran into the hall to give me one of her smooth evening kisses. I stepped forward to exchange it for one of my stubbly ones when—
"Oh, Jack," said Marjorie, "you've trodden on her!"
"'Her,'" I said. "Who's 'her'?"
"The dearest little tortoiseshell stray cat," replied Marjorie. "You really might have been more careful."
"I say, that's rather unfair," I said. "I stagger home tired to the teeth after a particularly thin day in the City, followed by a sardine-tin journey, and my own wife turns on me in favour of the first outcast cat that comes along. It's enough to drive a man to dope." Or, as the headlines would have it:—
NEAR BREAKING-POINT.
STRAIN OF BUSINESS LIFE.
ORIGIN OF THE DRUG HABIT.
After a bath and a change I felt better, and came down to dinner humming a sentimental ballad in Marjorie's honour. But the word "love" died on my lips when I saw that in the lap of Marjorie's pretty pink gown reposed the stray cat. The colour-clash and the misapplication of caresses which should have been my monopoly threw me back with a jerk to a state of bearishness.
"Surely you're not going to keep that animal?" I asked.
"Of course I am, as long as she likes to stay," said Marjorie. "She's very fond of me, aren't you, pussy? Fonder than my husband, I 'spect."