We all had a most terrible shock. Waking up from our afternoon sleep, we found that instead of being four, we were only three. Admiral Togo had gone. Mother had been asleep too, but she missed Togo first, and went routing about among us to make quite sure.
'I can't surely have mislaid him,' we heard her muttering. 'Or is it what I fear?'
'Perhaps he has got over the edge of the bed into the great world,' said Zobeide, 'and is hiding somewhere to tease us.'
'Possibly,' mother said gently. She jumped out of bed, and looked all over the room and into every corner. She called gently to Togo once or twice, using a special pet name of her own, and she was still wandering about when Rosamond came up with mother's dinner. She saw the state of affairs at once.
'Aha, old girl, looking for your kitten?' she said. 'Can't find Togo, eh?'
It struck me as suspicious that she knew which of us mother was seeking without looking into the basket. Mother answered quite crossly, 'No, nothing in particular.' She didn't want Rosamond to know that she valued Togo, or any kitten that ever was born.
'Well, then, dear Pet, I must tell you. Togo was getting too old to run about with women and children, and he has had his curls cut off, and been packed off to a preparatory school!'
'Tsha!' mother spat1 angrily. She didn't choose to be chaffed by a child. 'School! I am not going to be put off with a cock-and-bull story like that.'
But she couldn't keep it up for very long. She did really care what had become of Admiral Togo, and she hung her head and dropped her tail and tried to get behind the door.
'Poor Petronilla! You seem very much distressed2!' observed Auntie May, coming in just then, and kindly3 lifting mother up, and putting her back with us. 'But you are a sensible cat—I never knew a sensibler—and you have been through this kind of thing before. Cheer up! You have three left.'
'And I wonder how long I shall have them?' mother muttered. 'You are making pretty quick work with them. You have killed one, and now you have sold the other—'
Her bitterness made her unjust, because Auntie May didn't kill Blanch4, though she certainly had sold Admiral Togo, for what Rosamond said next showed it.
'May I go and see Togo?'
'You may. I am sure Mrs. Dillon will have no objection, but don't imagine for a moment that Togo will be glad to see you. Cats have hardly any memories, and kittens none at all. And a good thing too, for treated as chattels5 as they are they would have wretched lives of it. They don't listen to the rain upon the roof and think of other days, or have tears come into their eyes when they look at sunsets because they feel so ancient—'
'Why, Auntie May, you are talking like an old cat, while you are only a young woman. You aren't very old—not more than thirty, are you?'
'That is just the most miserable6 age,' said Auntie May; 'when I am forty I shall be as cheerful as—old boots!' She actually wiped a tear away as she spoke7. 'Good gracious me, Pet is simply murdering Freddy! drop it—drop it!'
'Please don't interfere8!' mother said, as well as she could speak with her mouth full of Freddy. 'If you only knew what he had been up to this afternoon you would be obliged to me, I can tell you! You will miss It presently, and wonder where it has got to. But I'll make the boy tell me where it is, and put it back too, before I have done with him!'
She gave it to Fred well, but she spared his pride and never told us where he had put Auntie May's opera-glasses. She hit very hard herself, but she never allowed us to lay a paw on each other, except in kindness. She was so afraid of our hurting each other, like Uncle Tomyris, who pulled out Uncle Ra's left eye once in a cattery brawl9.
'They got Professor Hobday to come and fit him with an artificial one. They really did, word of an honest cat!' mother said. She told us some other things that the Professor did, such as bandaging a cat's broken arm and putting it in splints, also false teeth, but that was a dog, I think, and it was worth about three hundred pounds. No cat that ever was born was worth that, mother says, but it is They who settle what we are all to cost, and They might be mistaken. They have agreed that cats are inferior to dogs; you may be as silly as you like about a dog, and even believe he has got a soul if you like, but a cat!—'My dear, it's too absurd!'
I hear this kind of thing in the drawing-room on Auntie May's at-home day, when we are often carried downstairs in a basket and allowed to play about and amuse the people. One hears a good deal. People who don't like cats think that Auntie May makes a perfect fool of herself about us. Once when Auntie May was persuaded to bring us down, to please a Mrs. Wheeler, I heard, with my own big ears, Mrs. Wheeler begin her sentence one way and finish it another.
'Lovely creatures, so beautiful in the firelight, when the light catches their outside fur and makes it shine like silver—' (Then Auntie May moved off and she went on) 'Poor, dear May! She is a bit of a bore with her cats, don't you think so? Do you notice how she always brings the conversation round to them in the end? It is a great mistake. She will be an old maid, it's a sure sign! Look at her now with a saucer on the floor and those three cats making a Manx penny all round it, and a nice man wanting to talk to her, and can't get a word from her! He looks disgusted, and no wonder!'
Auntie May didn't really keep us downstairs very long, and the nice man, as it happened, carried us up for her to her study, and put us all back in our basket, and stayed up talking with her quite a long time, and talking about Mrs. Wheeler, the very woman who had been abusing Auntie May for loving us so.
'She's a cat, that's what she is!' the nice man said, and Auntie May agreed, which was rather insulting to us. I am, however, not quite sure whether he didn't say a d instead of a t, which with them makes quite a different word.
Presently they said it was June, and the weather got beautiful. Auntie May thought we ought to take the air in the garden, and be allowed to run about on the grass. Rosamond was overjoyed, and so were we, at first. Then we began to get frightened. There was absolutely nothing on the top of us except the sky and the sun. I missed the nice sheltering bed and the cosy10 walls of the room we had lived in always. I felt as if the top of my skull11 had been taken off. I saw nothing to hide under either, except black poles that simply ran up straight into the blue. The sun was very hot, too, and I suppose I looked wretched, for suddenly Rosamond said:
'I do believe Loki has got a sunstroke, like Kitty had last year. His poor little head is so hot—feel!'
Auntie May was in such a fright that she bundled us all into the house.
Next day, when the sun was not quite so hot, she took us out again and we soon got used to it. Sometimes she chose me alone and took me on a lead and held the loop of it while she worked. She wrote on great white sheets of paper that the wind got under and tried to blow away. She told me to make myself useful and be a paperweight, but then when I sat on the freshly-written sheets it spread the ink all about and she did not seem to like that. At last the wind went down and she got interested and forgot me entirely12. Rosamond sneaked13 the end of the lead out of her hand when she was not looking and held it; it seemed to give her the greatest pleasure to hold me in. It is odd how that child likes managing people, and positively14 begs for responsibility. Well, she took it this time, and a nice mess she made of it!
She opened her hand as she got interested in her book, and I simply walked away with the lead bobbling after me. I liked responsibility too.
Suddenly I saw a dog coming towards me—I knew it was a dog from the one that was embroidered15 on the child's crawler we had to lie on at home. He was black, coarse-furred, with small mean eyes, and a fringe that kept tumbling into them. He approached me. I did not like to turn, or cringe, or look afraid, but I felt my tail stiffening16 and my claws sliding out all ready, by no will of my own. There was an odd feeling in my back too. I knew as well as if you had told me that I should be rude and spit at him if he came nearer.
He did. I spat. He barked. Still Auntie May didn't leave off putting her pencil in her mouth and writing with it. Then my mood changed. I felt I should like to leave that dog—I wanted not to be where it was. After all I was only a kitten, and I turned round slowly and walked in the direction of Auntie May.
He came prancing17 after me. I ran. He ran. The lead was most awfully18 in my way. I went straight past Auntie May in my nervousness, and up one of the straight black poles that seemed to lead up to Heaven—out of that dog's way, at any rate. It was a tree, so I heard after. Perhaps he could climb too—I didn't know! It was an instinct. The loop of the lead lay along the ground, and the idiotic19 puppy, as he must have been, hadn't the sense to hang on to it and drag me down. I think it was pretty clever of me to climb my first tree handicapped and shackled20 like that. Auntie May heard his short, sharp, cross barks, and came running and caught hold of the end of the lead to prevent me from going any higher up. Some people called off the puppy, and then, and not till then, did I allow myself to come down on to her shoulder, which she obligingly held under the exact bit of tree I was on.
It was much easier to go up than to come down. Perhaps I was excited then and made light of difficulties, but still mother told me that it was always the same way with her. Cats should look before they climb.
I scratched Auntie May's nose terribly for her as I came down, and it bled and had to be bathed. She was most kind about it.
'Never mind, darling, it won't matter. I am an ugly thing anyway, and I have only got to be presented at Court to-morrow! Just a little unimportant occasion of that kind.'
'Can't you explain to the Queen,' said Rosamond, 'that your cat scratched you? I have always heard she is so very kind.'
'No, I shan't worry her with explanations,' said Auntie May; 'only soldiers' scratches are worth talking about. Let us go in.'
Mother lectured me when she heard of my adventure. 'You should not have run,' she said, 'with that great heavy lead and all. If he had had the spirit of a flea21 he would have broken your back for you. You should not have shown it him; you should have stopped still and gone for his nose. That hurts, and he knows it. He would have run away from you the moment you raised your paw. Remember!'
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1
spat
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| n.口角，掌击；v.发出呼噜呼噜声 | |
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2
distressed
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| 痛苦的 | |
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3
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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4
blanch
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| v.漂白；使变白；使(植物)不见日光而变白 | |
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5
chattels
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| n.动产，奴隶( chattel的名词复数 ) | |
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6
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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7
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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8
interfere
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| v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰 | |
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9
brawl
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| n.大声争吵，喧嚷；v.吵架，对骂 | |
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10
cosy
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| adj.温暖而舒适的，安逸的 | |
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11
skull
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| n.头骨；颅骨 | |
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12
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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13
sneaked
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| v.潜行( sneak的过去式和过去分词 )；偷偷溜走；（儿童向成人）打小报告；告状 | |
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14
positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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15
embroidered
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| adj．绣花的 | |
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16
stiffening
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| n. (使衣服等)变硬的材料, 硬化 动词stiffen的现在分词形式 | |
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17
prancing
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| v.（马）腾跃( prance的现在分词 ) | |
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18
awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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19
idiotic
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| adj.白痴的 | |
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20
shackled
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| 给（某人）带上手铐或脚镣( shackle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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21
flea
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| n.跳蚤 | |
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