“Well, I went home from Susan’s house, and I said to Thomas Aquinas, ‘Thomas’—for he was one of those cats that you would no more have called ‘Tom’ than you would call Mr. Gladstone ‘Bill’—‘Thomas,’ I said, ‘I want you to come with me to Miss Susan’s and tell that Maltese beast that if she doesn’t quit her practice of swearing at me whenever I come into the room it will be the worse for her.’
“‘That’s easy enough,’ said Thomas. ‘I know one or two little things about that cat that would not do to be told, and she knows that I know them. Never you fear but that I can shut her up in a moment. I heard that she was going about bragging that she would get square with you for something you said to her one day, but I didn’t feel called upon to interfere without your express approval.’”
“The next day Thomas and I strolled over to Susan’s, and, as luck would have it, we were shown into her reception-room before she came downstairs. The Maltese cat was in the room, and began her usual game of being filled with horror at the sight of such a hardened wretch as myself. Of course, Thomas Aquinas took it up at once, and the two had a pretty hot argument. Now Thomas, in spite of his colossal mind, was a quick-tempered cat, and he was remarkably free-spoken when he was roused. One word led to another, and presently the Maltese flew at Thomas, and for about two minutes that room was so thick with fur that you could hardly see the fight. Of course, there could have been only one end to the affair. My cat weighed twice what the Maltese weighed, and after a few rounds he had her by the neck, and never let go until he had killed her. I was just saying ‘Hooray! Thomas!’ when Susan came into the room.
“I pass over what she said. Its general sense was that a man who encouraged dumb animals to fight, and who brought a great savage brute into her house to kill her sweet little pussy in her own parlor, wasn’t fit to live. She would listen to no explanations, and when I said that Thomas had called at my request to reason with the Maltese about her unkind conduct toward me, Susan said that my attempt to turn an infamous outrage into a stupid joke made the matter all the worse, and that she must insist that I and my prize-fighting beast should leave her house at once and never enter it again.
“So you see that if it had not been that I understood what the Maltese cat said at Martha Washington’s milk party, I should probably never have quarrelled with either Susan or her cat, and should now have been a missionary in Central Africa, if I hadn’t blown my brains out or taken to drink. I have often thought that the man Susan did marry might have been saved if he had known the cat language in time and had made the acquaintance of the Maltese.”
The Colonel paused, and presently I asked him if he really expected us to believe his story.
“Why not?” he replied. “It isn’t any stiffer than Darwin’s yarn about our being descended from monkeys. You believe that on the word of a man you never saw, and I expect you to believe my story that I understand the cat language on my unsupported word. Perhaps the story is a little tough, but if you are going in for science you shouldn’t let your credulity be backed down by any story.”
