Next morning a whole heap of letters came by the post. Auntie May read bits of them aloud to Mrs. Jay, and I heard them between my mouthfuls of bread and milk. There was one from Beatrice saying that she supposed Auntie May wasn't going to stay in Paris much longer, it must be getting so hot; she supposed she wouldn't mind a few little commissions, and out came a list as long as Auntie May's arm.
There was one from Mr. Fox, which I managed to get hold of and trailed all over the room, pretending it was a mouse, and paying it back for Mr. Fox's treatment of me. I like to be loved.
There was a long letter from Mrs. Dillon in South Africa about Admiral Togo.
'I sometimes think he is turning into a baby,' she wrote. 'He really is almost human, and expresses his every wish so unmistakably that I am convinced he will actually talk some day. He is very well. His fur comes off, but the "vet" says that is inevitable here, and that it will come on again. He is a shocking bad sailor and hated the sea. Nothing would induce him to look at it through a porthole unless I held him in my arm and talked all the time to him. Then he got a little, nervously, interested. My maid bought a wicker basket-chair for him at Madeira, and he sat on it on deck, never making the slightest attempt to leave it. Below he had only one pleasure, a canary. Up to the very last he hoped that it would come into his mouth. He felt the heat of the tropics very much, and complained in a feeble way of being forced to travel in his chinchilla coat and cuffs. I showed him how to lie on the floor with his head on a book for coolness, so all the hot time he insisted on my making this arrangement for him; he could not somehow or other get it right for himself.
'Here at Rondebosch he is getting a little old-fashioned, having no other cats to play with except me and my maid. He goes walks with me, padding along on his short fat legs, with his tongue hanging out of his mouth till he is tired, when he lies down on his back and cries till I go and pick him up, and then have to carry him the rest of the way. I want my maid to buy him a "pram."'
I can't remember any more. Auntie May nearly cried with pleasure at getting this long letter from Mrs. Dillon. I wished Auntie May would take me walks. She never seemed to think of it, and I got into the habit of taking them for myself—on the roof.
This was stopped.
'May,' said Mrs. Jay, 'when I came in to-day I heard a mew, and your cat welcomed me into my own house from the roof, craning his silly little neck over the gutter, like the devils of Notre Dame. Do you think it safe? He isn't attached behind, like the gargoyles, you know.'
'Not at all safe,' said Auntie May, and, together with the hotness, this was one of the reasons for her deciding to go home.
About a fortnight after this my basket was brought out and filled with little bits of paper. I knew what this meant. I was not, however, put into it till the very last minute, two days later.