'He didn't really eat any, May, only tried one. It looked like the inside of a clock somehow.'
'Oh, don't, you pig!' screamed Auntie May, and cried, actually cried, about the poor, dear, dead, darling little mice! I cried too, and promised her I would never catch any more. As a matter of fact, it really isn't a bit in my line. I am not a stable, or a kitchen, or even a carpenter's cat, and mousing is not a fit pursuit for Petronilla's child.
'So Loki has vindicated his reputation!' remarked Mrs. Gilmour, when she heard of what Beatrice was pleased to call my prowess. 'Disgusting little cruel wretch! The principle of cruelty is deeply embedded in a cat's consciousness. Now a dog—'
'What does a dog do to a rat?' asked Auntie May rudely. But Mrs. Gilmour took no notice.
'The dog is a noble animal—'
'I once wrote that out a hundred times in my copy-book,' observed Amerye, 'and I can't write any better now, and I hate dogs because of it!'
'Hush, Amerye, you are rude!' said Miss Grueber.
'A dog has dignity, a cat has only impudence,' continued Mrs. Gilmour, 'and comes when he is called—'
'To dinner, eh?' said Auntie May. 'I never knew a cat that would come when it was called to dinner, even. A cat is at least consistent. A dog is too greedy to wait to be consistent.'
'A dog can be greedy with dignity!' said Mrs. Gilmour. 'I have seen him. And yet he is man's slave—self-constituted.'