It was about five o'clock when we arrived, and took a cab to go home. I was undone in the hall of No. 100 Egerton Gardens. I then jumped out gracefully and quietly, and stood, a little dazed, to tell the truth. Auntie May, having paid the cab, left the servants to get out the luggage, and taking me in her arms went straight to the studio. I knew she wanted badly to go and see mother and Fred, but restrained herself.
'Fathers before cats!' she said. 'What would Dad think if I did not go and dig him out first?'
On opening the studio door she gave a terrible jump, and dropped me. Mr. Graham was there all right, painting away with his back to her and his palette on his thumb; but what made her jump was the sight of mother sitting on the funny little bit of a chair which was all he would allow himself to sit on when he was tired, and Fred and Zobeide wallowing composedly in the wastepaper basket—Fred larger and more impudent than ever.
Worse than this, there was a large black cat with a white star on its breast, mumbling a fish's head in the middle of the floor, that didn't even have the grace to leave off when we came in.
'Oh, my dear, darling Dad!' cried Auntie May, rushing to him. 'How glad I am to see you; and how are you, and why do I find you all—silted up with cats like this?'
Mr. Graham put down his palette and his mahl-stick, and Zobeide ran off with the latter, and Fred jumped on to the former, and he kissed Auntie May again and again, and answered her question rather slowly.
'Well, you see, my dear, you were a long time away, and Pet and Zobeide and Freddy—you were always so fond of them—I thought I could look after them all better if I kept them constantly under my eye. They are not the rose, but they were near it—and I was a bit lonely.'
'And so you had my menagerie in to remind you of me! Dear darling Dad, you couldn't have paid me a better compliment. But then, father, who is the black gentleman?'
'He is my cat!' said the old gentleman gravely, 'and you will please to love him for my sake. He is another story. One dark night I took him in—or rather he took me in, for he stayed here a week without my knowing it. He drank Pet's milk and ate my more easily digested paints, and never had the decency to get Pet to present him to me, though he was enjoying my hospitality. He is not well-favoured, as you see, but an interesting beast—an adventurer, I fear. The other cats barely tolerate him!'
I should think not indeed! I had my tail twice as thick as usual already, and the black cat was staring hard at me, wishing he dared stiffen his too, but hardly sure enough of his position yet, in spite of Mr. Graham's friendly speech, to do so. The black cat then spoke to me personally: