elf facing an absolutely monstrous cat. Starlike he held the
very centre of the stage, his two great topaz eyes were fixed roundly
and unflinchingly upon my face. On his body and torn ears he carried the
marks of many battles. His brindled tail stood straightly and
aggressively in the air, and twitched with short, quick twitches, at its
very tip, truly as burly an old buccaneer as I ever saw.

No wonder they giggled! But how to save the approaching death scene from
total ruin? All was done in a mere moment or two; but several plans were
made and rejected during these few moments. Naturally my first thought,
and the correct one, was to call back "Nannine," my faithful maid, and
tell her to remove the cat. But alas! my Nannine was an unusually
dull-witted girl, and she would never be able to do a thing she had not
rehearsed. My next impulse was to pick up the creature and carry it off
myself; but I was playing a dying girl, and the people had just seen me,
after only three steps, reel helplessly into a chair; and this cat might
easily weigh twelve pounds or more; and then at last my plan was formed.
I had been clinging all the time to the bureau for support, now I
slipped to my knees and with a prayer in my heart that this fierce old
Thomas might not decline my acquaintance, I held out my hand, and in a
faint voice, called "Puss--Puss--Puss! come here, Puss!"

It was an awful moment: if he refused to come, if he turned tail and
ran, all was over; the audience would roar.

"Puss--Puss!" I pleaded. Thomas looked hard at me, hesitated, stretched
out his neck, and working his whiskers nervously, sniffed at my hand.

"Puss--Puss!" I gasped out once more, and lo! he gave a little "meow,"
and walking over to me, arched his back amicably, and rubbed his dingy
old body against my knee. In a moment my arms were about him, my cheek
on his wicked old head, and the applause that broke forth from the
audience was as balm of Gilead to my distress and mortification. Then I
called for Nannine, and when she came on, I said to her, "Take him
downstairs, Nannine, he grows too heavy a pet for me these days," and
she lifted and carried Sir Thomas from the stage, and so I got out of
the scrape without sacrificing my character as a sick woman.

My manager, Mr. John P. Smith, who was a wag, and who would willingly
give up his dinner, which he loved, for a joke, which he loved better,
was the next day questioned about this incident. One gentlem