, dodging among
docks and Dogs, carts and Cats, crooked arms of the bay and straight
board fences, she got, in an hour or two, among familiar scenes and
smells; and, before the sun came up, she had crawled back--weary and
foot-sore through the same old hole in the same old fence and over a
wall to her junk-yard back of the bird-cellar--yes, back into the very
cracker-box where she was born.

Oh, if the Fifth Avenue family could only have seen her in her native
Orient!

After a long rest she came quietly down from the cracker-box toward the
steps leading to the cellar, engaged in her old-time pursuit of seeking
for eatables. The door opened, and there stood the negro. He shouted to
the bird-man inside:

"Say, boss, come hyar. Ef dere ain't dat dar Royal Ankalostan am comed
back!"

Jap came in time to see the Cat jumping the wall. They called loudly
and in the most seductive, wheedling tones: "Pussy, Pussy, poor Pussy!
Come, Pussy!" But Pussy was not prepossessed in their favor, and
disappeared to forage in her old-time haunts.

The Royal Analostan had been a windfall for Jap--had been the means of
adding many comforts to the cellar and several prisoners to the cages.
It was now of the utmost importance to recapture her majesty. Stale
meat-offal and other infallible lures were put out till Pussy, urged by
the reestablished hunger-pinch, crept up to a large fish-head in a
box-trap; the negro, in watching, pulled the string that dropped the
lid, and, a minute later, the Analostan was once more among the
prisoners in the cellar. Meanwhile Jap had been watching the 'Lost and
Found' column. There it was, "$25 reward," etc. That night Mr. Malee's
butler called at the Fifth Avenue mansion with the missing cat. "Mr.
Malee's compliments, sah. De Royal Analostan had recurred in her recent
proprietor's vicinity and residence, sah. Mr. Malee had pleasure in
recuperating the Royal Analostan, sah." Of course Mr. Malee could not
be rewarded, but the butler was open to any offer, and plainly showed
that he expected the promised reward and something more.

Kitty was guarded very carefully after that; but so far from being
disgusted with the old life of starving, and glad of her ease, she
became wilder and more dissatisfied.

VIII

The spring was doing its New York best. The dirty little English
Sparrows were tumbling over each other in their gutter brawls, Cats
yowled all night in the areas, and the Fifth Avenue family were