ain, and whistled as he came back to the office with
his hand-truck full of packages and the large express envelope with the
red seals on the back snugly tucked in his inside pocket, but when he
opened the envelope and read the first paper that fell out he stopped
whistling.

"Agent, Westcote," said the letter. "Regarding W.B. 23645, Hibbert &
Jones, consignor of the cat you are holding in storage, advises us that
the consignee claims cat you have is not the cat shipped by consignor.
Return cat by first train to this office. If the cat is not strong
enough to travel alone have veterinary accompany it. Yrs. truly,
Interurban Express Company, per J."

At first a grin spread over the face of Flannery. "'Not sthrong enough
t' travel alone'!" he said with a chuckle. "If iver there was a sthrong
cat 'tis that wan be this time, an' 't w'u'd be a waste av ixpinse t'
hire a----" Suddenly his face sobered.

He glanced out of the back door at the square mile of hummocky sand and
clay.

"'Return cat be firrst trrain t' this office,'" he repeated blankly. He
left his seat and went to the door and looked out. "Return th' cat," he
said, and stepped out upon the edge of the soft, new soil. It was all
alike in its recently dug appearance. "Th' cat, return it," he repeated,
taking steps this way and that way, with his eyes on the clay at his
feet. He walked here and there, but one place looked like the others.
There was room for ten thousand cats, and one cat might have been buried
in any one of ten thousand places. Flannery sighed. Orders were orders,
and he went back to the office and locked the doors. He borrowed a
coal-scoop from the grocer next door and went out and began to dig up
the clay and sand. He dug steadily and grimly. Never, perhaps, in the
history of the world had a man worked so hard to dig up a dead cat. Even
in ancient Egypt, where the cat was a sacred animal, they did not dig
them up when they had them planted. Quite the contrary: it was a crime
to dig them up; and Flannery, as he dug, had a feeling that it would be
almost a crime to dig up this one. Never, perhaps, did a man dig so hard
to find a thing he really did not care to have.

Flannery dug all that morning. At lunch-time he stopped digging--and
went without his lunch--long enough to deliver the packages that had
come on the early train. As he passed the station he saw a crowd of boys
playing hockey with an old tomato-can, and he stopped. When he reached