FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   >>  
from. Its atmosphere of solid dignity and petrified conservatism seemed to cling to him. Why he left the club I am unable, at this distance of time, to remember positively, but I am inclined to think that it came about owing to a difference with the new _chef_, an overbearing personage who wanted all the fire to himself. The butcher, hearing of the quarrel, and knowing us as a catless family, suggested a way out of the _impasse_ that was welcomed both by cat and cook. The parting between them, I believe, was purely formal, and Thomas arrived prejudiced in our favour. My wife, the moment she saw him, suggested Henry as a more suitable name. It struck me that the combination of the two would be still more appropriate, and accordingly, in the privacy of the domestic circle, Thomas Henry he was called. When speaking of him to friends, we generally alluded to him as Thomas Henry, Esquire. He approved of us in his quiet, undemonstrative way. He chose my own particular easy chair for himself, and stuck to it. An ordinary cat I should have shot out, but Thomas Henry was not the cat one chivvies. Had I made it clear to him that I objected to his presence in my chair, I feel convinced he would have regarded me much as I should expect to be regarded by Queen Victoria, were that gracious Lady to call upon me in a friendly way, and were I to inform her that I was busy, and request her to look in again some other afternoon. He would have risen, and have walked away, but he never would have spoken to me again so long as we lived under the same roof. We had a lady staying with us at the time--she still resides with us, but she is now older, and possessed of more judgment--who was no respecter of cats. Her argument was that seeing the tail stuck up, and came conveniently to one's hand, that was the natural appendage by which to raise a cat. She also laboured under the error that the way to feed a cat was to ram things into its head, and that its pleasure was to be taken out for a ride in a doll's perambulator. I dreaded the first meeting of Thomas Henry with this lady. I feared lest she should give him a false impression of us as a family, and that we should suffer in his eyes. But I might have saved myself all anxiety. There was a something about Thomas Henry that checked forwardness and damped familiarity. His attitude towards her was friendly but firm. Hesitatingly, and with a new- born respect for cats, she
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   >>  



Top keywords:
Thomas
 

suggested

 

family

 

regarded

 

friendly

 
judgment
 
possessed
 

request

 
inform
 

respecter


spoken

 

walked

 
staying
 

resides

 
afternoon
 

anxiety

 
suffer
 
feared
 

impression

 

Hesitatingly


respect

 

attitude

 

checked

 

forwardness

 

damped

 

familiarity

 

meeting

 

appendage

 

natural

 

conveniently


laboured

 
perambulator
 

dreaded

 

pleasure

 

things

 
argument
 

knowing

 
catless
 

impasse

 
welcomed

quarrel
 

hearing

 
personage
 
wanted
 

butcher

 

formal

 
arrived
 

prejudiced

 
purely
 

parting