The Cat

by Violet Hunt

The gutter was dirty, full of vegetables and things thrown away, and even when they did tidy up, they only pushed the refuse under a grating. The dirty towel the men used to stop up the hole in the sewer with was lying near by—a stupid way of arranging it, I thought. The noise in the street was terrific. It was the first time I had stood there alone. The tinkly horse bells got on my nerves—horses all wear collars in Paris. One wonders they don't spoil their ruffs. Auntie May won't let any of her cats wear them, though for some reasons it would be most convenient, for one would always know where the cat was at a given moment. I longed to get in again, but the great big doors were shut. So sooner than sit still doing nothing, I moved a little way farther down the street, and gradually got on to what I imagined from descriptions must be the Big Boulevard. It was a great danger, but luckily it was dark. At the crossing there was a policeman with a stick that he tried to keep cabs back with as they do in London, so mother has told me, but the horses here just pushed it back rudely with their noses, and went on and nearly ran over people.

I got across, and on the other side there were numbers of places where They eat, and many people sitting outside at little tables munching peanuts and drinking coffee out of glasses. They dropped pieces of sugar into them and gave them to their children, who all seemed to have leave to sit up and be out of doors in the night time. Rosamond and her sisters go to bed at eight, but then they are English children. Every moment I thought something was happening, people made such a noise. Every now and then men ran down the street calling out in dreadful fear; their harsh screams of terror frightened me, but I soon discovered, by an old gentleman near me giving one man a sou and quieting him, that these scraggy poor men were only selling their papers. In the middle of the road the stream of carriages and cabs rolled—rolled by till my poor head turned, and I didn't know when I should ever cross that river of carriages and get home. I knew, having crossed the street once, that I was bound to cross it again to get back, but there was not a cat in the whole region from whom I could ask the way.

I felt so lonely that I could have mewed aloud, but if I had that would have called attention to me, and I should have been arrested by one of the men in blue who held the bâton and minded the crossing. I rubbed myself against an old gentleman who was taking absinthe at the little table near which I had placed myself. He looked down and only said, 'Tiens, un chat! Rentre, mon vieux,' which translated means, 'Hold, a cat! Go home, old man!' which was precisely what I wanted to do, if only he would have put me safely over the crossing. He probably thought I belonged to the restaurant near where I was lurking.

At last the stream of carriages seemed to thin a little, and I took my courage between my teeth and made a wild dash to get across.

I did it. The garçon called out, 'Holà! Hé!' and some other strange expressions of surprise, but I never minded. Keeping a stiff whisker, although I was mortally afraid, I walked down the long street that led southwards to my home in Rue de L'Echelle.

I knew the house by a piece of orange-peel lying in a particular place near the door that I had noticed when Auntie May had started three hours ago, and also by its own peculiar smell.

Every house has its special smell, over and above all the town smell, you know. The smell of Paris is quite different from the smell of London. It is a kind of fried-potatoes-and-garlic smell mixed together on a hot stove-dried air—nothing solid about it, somehow. Auntie May says it is like sweet champagne, and just as heady.

I had plenty of time to think what the air of Paris was like, for the door stayed shut, and I stayed in the street with every prospect of doing it till morning. I could not ring the bell and say, 'Cordon, s'il vous plait.' Then a thought struck me. Had Auntie May come in yet? How could I tell? I looked about to see if she had dropped anything—a pin, a flower, a hair-pin?

Nothing! Now, Auntie May was just the kind of person to drop something, and I began to hope that she had not come in yet. I waited. I could sneak in with her if I was mean, or make a clean breast of it and show myself. I didn't know which I would do. It depended on the sort of temper she was in. I can generally smell that.

After about an hour I heard a cab come down the street, going very quickly. Auntie May got out and paid the man and sent him away. Then she rang, very loudly and impatiently. I was sitting quietly beside her, meaning her to see me. I had decided to do it that way, but I said nothing. She noticed me at once, and spoke to me seriously: