They drafted a round robin to the Englishman, the backslider of old days,
adjuring him in the interests of the creed to explain whether there was
any connection between the embodiment of some Egyptian god or other (I
have forgotten the name) and his communication. They called the kitten Ra,
or Toth, or Shem, or Noah, or something; and when Lone Sahib confessed
that the first one had, at his most misguided instance, been drowned by
the sweeper, they said consolingly that in his next life he would be a
"bounder," and not even a "rounder" of the lowest grade. These words may
not be quite correct, but they express the sense of the house accurately.

When the Englishman received the round robin--it came by post--he was
startled and bewildered. He sent into the bazaar for Dana Da, who read the
letter and laughed. "That is my Sending," said he. "I told you I would
work well. Now give me another ten rupees."

"But what in the world is this gibberish about Egyptian gods?" asked the
Englishman.

"Cats," said Dana Da, with a hiccough, for he had discovered the
Englishman's whisky bottle. "Cats and cats and cats! Never was such a
Sending. A hundred of cats. Now give me ten more rupees and write as I
dictate."

Dana Da's letter was a curiosity. It bore the Englishman's signature, and
hinted at cats--at a Sending of cats. The mere words on paper were creepy
and uncanny to behold.

"What have you done, though?" said the Englishman; "I am as much in the
dark as ever. Do you mean to say that you can actually send this absurd
Sending you talk about?"

"Judge for yourself," said Dana Da. "What does that letter mean? In a
little time they will all be at my feet and yours, and I, oh, glory! will
be drugged or drunk all day long."

Dana Da knew his people.

When a man who hates cats wakes up in the morning and finds a little
squirming kitten on his breast, or puts his hand into his ulster pocket
and finds a little half-dead kitten where his gloves should be, or opens
his trunk and finds a vile kitten among his dress shirts, or goes for a
long ride with his mackintosh strapped on his saddle-bow and shakes a
little sprawling kitten from its folds when he opens it, or goes out to
dinner and finds a little blind kitten under his chair, or stays at home
and finds a writhing kitten under the quilt, or wriggling among his boots,
or hanging, head downward, in his tobacco jar, or being mangled by his
terrier in the veranda--when such a man