rous bass voice: "Have you
had your breakfast, Jack?"

The words filled the cat with indescribable terror; and she leapt back.
The blast of a trumpet, the smash of a pile of crockery, or a
pistol-shot fired by her ear would not have dismayed the feline to such
an extent. All her ornithological notions were upset.

"And what did you have?--A royal roast," went on the bird.

The cat's expression clearly meant: "This is not a bird; it's a man; it
speaks."

"When of claret I've drunk my fill,
The pot-house whirls and is whirling still,"

sang out the bird with a deafening voice, for it had at once perceived
that the terror inspired by its speech was its surest means of defence.

The cat looked at me questioningly, and my reply proving unsatisfactory,
she sneaked under the bed, and refused to come out for the rest of the
day.

Those of my readers who have not been in the habit of having animals to
keep them company, and who see in them, as did Descartes, merely
machines, will no doubt think I am attributing intentions to the bird
and the quadruped, but as a matter of fact, I have merely translated
their thoughts into human speech. The next day, Madame-Theophile, having
somewhat overcome her fright, made another attempt, and was routed in
the same fashion. That was enough for her, and henceforth she remained
convinced that the bird was a man.

This dainty and lovely creature adored perfumes. She would go into
ecstasies on breathing in the patchouli and vetiver used for Cashmere
shawls. She had also a taste for music. Nestling upon a pile of scores,
she would listen most attentively and with every mark of satisfaction to
the singers who came to perform at the critic's piano. But high notes
made her nervous, and she never failed to close the singer's mouth with
her paw if the lady sang the high A. We used to try the experiment for
the fun of the thing, and it never failed once. It was quite impossible
to fool my dilettante cat on that note.

II

THE WHITE DYNASTY

Let me come to more recent times. A cat brought from Havana by Mlle.
Aita de la Penuela, a young Spanish artist whose studies of white angora
cats used to adorn and still adorn the show-windows of the
print-sellers, gave birth to the daintiest little kitten, exactly like
the puffs used for the application of face powder, which kitten was
presented to me. Its immaculate whiteness caused it to be named Pierrot,
and this appellation, when i