you see it, Sam? Why don't it grab hold? What's it doin' now, Sam?"

"It's spittin' at Herman's trousers," said Sam. "My gracious, but it's a
fierce cat! If it's mad all the time like this, you better not ever try
to pet it much. Now it's kind o' sniffin' at the trousers. It acks to me
as if it was goin' to ketch hold. Yes, it's stuck one claw in 'em--OW!"

Sam uttered a blood-curdling shriek and jerked convulsively. The next
instant, streaming and inconceivably gaunt, the ravening Gipsy appeared
with a final bound upon Sam's shoulder. It was not in Gipsy's character
to be drawn up peaceably; he had ascended the trousers and Sam's arm
without assistance and in his own way. Simultaneously--for this was a
notable case of everything happening at once--there was a muffled, soggy
splash, and the unfortunate Herman, smit with prophecy in his seclusion,
uttered a dismal yell. Penrod laid hands upon Gipsy, and, after a
struggle suggestive of sailors landing a man-eating shark, succeeded in
getting him into the box, and sat upon the lid thereof.

Sam had leaped to his feet, empty handed and vociferous.

"Ow ow, OUCH!" he shouted, as he rubbed his suffering arm and shoulder.
Then, exasperated by Herman's lamentations, he called angrily: "Oh, what
_I_ care for your ole britches? I guess if you'd 'a' had a cat climb up
YOU, you'd 'a' dropped 'em a hunderd times over!"

However, upon excruciating entreaty, he consented to explore the
surface of the water with a clothes-prop, but reported that the luckless
trousers had disappeared in the depths, Herman having forgotten to
remove some "fishin' sinkers" from his pockets before making the fated
loan.

Penrod was soothing a lacerated wrist in his mouth.

"That's a mighty fine-blooded cat," he remarked. "I expect it'd got
away from pretty near anybody, 'specially if they didn't know much about
cats. Listen at him, in the box, Sam. I bet you never heard a cat growl
as loud as that in your life. I shouldn't wonder it was part panther or
sumpthing."

Sam began to feel more interest and less resentment.

"I tell you what we can do, Penrod," he said: "Let's take it in the
stable and make the box into a cage. We can take off the hinges and
slide back the lid a little at a time, and nail some o' those laths over
the front for bars."

"That's just exackly what I was goin' to say!" Penrod exclaimed. "I
already thought o' that, Sam. Yessir, we'll make it just like a reg'lar
circus-cage,