n when we met at a neutral tea-table, I
attempted a reconciliation.

"Perhaps your dog and my cat have made up our quarrel in heaven," I
began, passing him the sugar.

"I don't believe your cat went to heaven," he retorted, passing me the
lemon.

Our last attempt at a home kitten was with a little sprite of so
perverse and irreverent a temper that the most liberal theology could
hardly hold out to us the hope of finding her again in any Paradise
where pious pussies congregate. This impish being was foisted upon us
by an old friend whose persuasive powers, as I had long known, were
irresistible. In tones that were dulcet even by way of the telephone
she invited me to shelter her wild young puss, Polly, during the
summer, while she closed her own house and, bearing Billy in a basket,
sought the repose of an ocean isle.

"Why don't you carry Polly with you, too?"

"There isn't room in the basket and, besides, I'm sure that _two_ cats
would be against the rules of the railroad."

"But Polly takes to the trees whenever I try to pat her. She would run
away."

"Oh, I can arrange that for you very nicely. I'll let you have a kitten
of hers and then she'll be perfectly contented."

"A kitten of Polly's! She is only a kitten herself."

"Yes, you are quite right, as usual. One kitten might not be enough to
steady her. It would be better for you to have two, and then Polly will
be kept busy in teaching them to play together."

"Now how many catkins have you over there? Own up."

"Well! Not counting the pincushion pussy that the mice like to nibble,
we have six on hand just now,--Billy and Polly and the four kits. Such
darlings! Everybody wants them. The competition is really terrible, but
of course I insist that you shall have first choice. Come over this
afternoon, please. We are taking the early train to-morrow morning."

Spellbound by the cheerful audacity of these proposals, I went, and
when, after much active exertion on our part, Polly had been caught and
securely hasped down under a heaving basket-lid, I dubiously selected
two of her blind babes to bear her company.

"Who takes the other two?"

"You do," responded my friend more winsomely than ever, "unless you
want to be a horrid Herod and go down in history as another slayer of
the innocents. Look at those little dears! Listen to them! Have you the
heart to ask me to drop them into a pail of cold, cold water? What sort
of a physiologist are you to suppose