'He threw himself out of the window, Miss,' said Mary, passing by. Of course I couldn't contradict her, and I didn't want to either, she was a good soul, was Mary, and I bore her no malice. Cats never do, it's your precious dogs that remember grievances.
'I always used to jeer,' said Auntie May to some friends who were calling next day, 'when people said that cats did not hurt themselves when they fall, but now I see they are right. Both mine have had their little experience of this kind, and I am happy to say are not one penny the worse!'
She hadn't noticed my short tooth. I found out at the cat-party how unsightly it was, and what a blemish.
A friend of Auntie May's, who had three beautiful Persians, gave a cat-party, and asked Auntie May to it. It was at four o'clock, refreshments at five, and a dark room provided for cats that would not behave or fraternise. We three had all bows of different colours, put on us for once, but at the last minute mother shirked it, and hid so that Auntie May could not find her. So she had to leave her behind. The party was not very far off, only across the garden, so she carried us one under each arm.
There were about thirty cats at Mrs. Felton's, and only nine of them were grey like us. There was a ginger cat, with a Roman ribbon round his neck, who took a fancy to me. Freddy could not be parted from a white girl-cat; he likes girls, I hate them. I mean never to marry, but Fred liked female society from the very first. Then there was a black cat who had been on the stage. He said he had been very much neglected in his youth, and once had been walking about on the tops of roofs till he got too far away from his home, and suddenly found himself, on jumping down some steps, or ladder, or something, in a great wide covered place, with people on it, shouting.
They all stopped when they saw him, and a man with a stick rapped it and said 'Attention—please, ladies and gentlemen.'
He was the business manager, and the black cat had jumped into the middle of a dress rehearsal. The real manager was acting, and he took no notice of the black cat till he was done, and then he wouldn't have it chased away, for, said he, a black cat brings good luck to a theatre. So they fed him, and he lived there, and had perfect liberty to walk about where he pleased. He did go where he pleased, and whether they were acting or not it made no difference to him, he just walked on, so they call it, and smelt their boots, or sat on the ladies' trains, or licked up stage tea-trays if he liked. The reason he was here was that he was the guest of the manager's daughter, who had taken him off the stage because he had brought luck to her father's piece. But he often sighed for the nice merry days.
A BLACK CAT BRINGS GOOD LUCK TO A THEATRE.