for Tumps, my peculiar legacy, I have nothing good to say and no
apologies to offer. Like Calverley's parrot, he still lives--"he will
not die." Tumps is a tomcat. And not only is he a tomcat, he is a
hate-scarred noctivagant, owning but an ear and a half, and a poor third
of tail. His design was botched at birth, and has since been degraded;
his color is unpleasant; his expression is ferocious--and utterly
sincere. He has no friends in the world but Susan and Sonia, and Sonia
cannot safely keep him with her because of the children.

Out of the night he came, shortly after Togo's arrival; starved for
once into submission and dragging himself across the garden terrace to
Susan's feet. And she accepted this devil's gift, this household
scourge. I never did, nor did Togo; but we were finally subdued by fear.
Those baleful eyes cursing us from dim corners--Togo, Togo, shall we
ever forget them! Separately or together, we have more than once failed
to enter a dusky room, toward twilight, where those double phosphors
burned from your couch corner or out from beneath my easy-chair.

But nothing would move Susan to give Tumps up so long as he cared to
remain; and Tumps cared. Small wonder! Nursed back to health and
rampageous vivacity, he soon mastered the neighborhood, peopled it with
his ill-favored offspring, and wailed his obscene balladry to the moon.
Hillhouse Avenue protested, _en bloc_. The Misses Carstairs, whose
slumbers had more than once been postponed, and whose white Persian,
Desdemona, had been debauched, threatened traps, poison and the law.
Professor Emeritus Gillingwater attempted murder one night with a .22
rifle, but only succeeded in penetrating the glass roof of his
neighbor's conservatory.

Susan was unmoved, defending her own; she would not listen to any plea,
and she mocked at reprisals. Those were the early days of her coming,
when I could not force myself to harsh measures; and happily Tumps,
having lost some seven or eight lives, did with the years grow more
sedate, though no more amiable. But the point is, he stayed--and, I
repeat, lives to this hour on my distant, grudging bounty.

Such was the charge lightly laid upon me....

Oh, Susan--Susan! For once, resentment will out! May you suffer, shamed
to contrition, as you read these lines! Tumps--and I say it now
boldly--is "no damn good."

XV

I am clinging to this long chapter as if I were still clinging to
Susan's hand on the wind-swept