palm branches. They shall
learn kindness early, to the dog, the cat, yes, even the rat, and the
pretty linnet in its cage."

"But," said his dear, beside him, "you remember what Blake said:

"'A Robin Redbreast in a cage
Puts all heaven in a rage.'"

"Ah--but not when it is treated truly with kindness, my dear. I shall
immediately order some rabbits, and a canary or two, and--what sort of a
dog would you prefer our dear little ones to have to play with, my
sweet?"

And his dear looked at him in all his imperturbable, complacent
self-consciousness of kindness, and saw herself the little rural school-
teacher who, with Ella Wheeler Wilcox and Lord Byron as her idols, and
with the dream of herself writing "Poems of Passion," had come up to
Topeka Town to be beaten by the game into marrying the solid, substantial
business man beside her, who enjoyed delight in the spectacle of cats and
rats walking the tight-rope in amity, and who was blissfully unaware that
she was the Robin Redbreast in a cage that put all heaven in a rage.

"The rats are bad enough," said Miss Merle Merryweather. "But look how
he uses up the cats. He's had three die on him in the last two weeks to
my certain knowledge. They're only alley-cats, but they've got feelings.
It's that boxing match that does for them."

The boxing match, sure always of a great hand from the audience,
invariably concluded Duckworth's turn. Two cats, with small
boxing-gloves, were put on a table for a friendly bout. Naturally, the
cats that performed with the rats were too cowed for this. It was the
fresh cats he used, the ones with spunk and spirit . . . until they lost
all spunk and spirit or sickened and died. To the audience it was a side-
splitting, playful encounter between four-legged creatures who thus
displayed a ridiculous resemblance to superior, two-legged man. But it
was not playful to the cats. They were always excited into starting a
real fight with each other off stage just before they were brought on. In
the blows they struck were anger and pain and bewilderment and fear. And
the gloves just would come off, so that they were ripping and tearing at
each other, biting as well as making the fur fly, like furies, when the
curtain went down. In the eyes of the audience this apparent impromptu
was always the ultimate scream, and the laughter and applause would
compel the curtain up again to reveal Duckworth and an assistant stage-
hand, as i