"No-o," says Pop, "it's only...."

He's interrupted by a knock on the door, and I go open it a crack. A guy
says he's the landlord. As soon as Kate hears his voice, she yelps at him,
"I paid my rent, first of the month like always. Don't you come bothering
me!"

"It's about the cats," he says. "People outside saying you got a dozen
cats in here. There's a law, you know."

He's a seedy-looking, whining kind of a man, and he looks real pleased
with himself when he says there's a law about cats.

Kate jumps right at him. "I'm not breaking any laws. I know you. You just
want to get me out of here and rent the place for more money. You leave me
alone!"

The man whines, "There's a law, that's all. I don't want no violation
slapped on my building."

Pop comes over and tells the man there's just a mother cat with kittens.
"There's a couple of strays here, too, right now, but I'll take them home
with me."

"There's a law, that's all. Also, I got a right to inspect the premises."
Pop shows no signs of letting him in, and he shuffles and grumbles and
goes away.

"Lock the door," Kate snaps. "I keep it locked all the time."

Pop says he's going home to make some phone calls and try to figure out
what's going on. He takes down the name and address of Kate's brother and
asks her if she's sure there are no other relatives. She says she never
heard of any. Pop goes, and Kate insists that I lock the door after him.

She gets up and starts stirring around getting food out for the cats. She
buys fish and chicken livers for them, even though she hardly eats any
meat herself. She listens at the back door a moment to make sure no one's
out there, then opens the door and puts out the garbage and wastebasket.
There goes the adventurous kitten. You got to hand it to Kate. She has no
sniffling sentimentality about her cats. Kitten's dead, it's dead, that's
all. She doesn't mope over the limp mite of fur. In fact, anything to do
with cats she's got sense and guts. They're her family. I don't know that
I could have put that kitten out of its misery.

Just as long as the world doesn't throw any stray fortunes at her, Kate
does fine. But when people get in her way, she needs someone like Pop.

Mom says she'll stick around a while and tells me to take the two stray
kittens home, just in case the landlord comes back trying to make trouble.

"O.K., great--Cat'll have some company!"

Kate sniffs. "He'll hate it. Cats don't like other cat