the road!" So it was, hissing like a
steam-escape, and every hair on its body bristling with wrath at a large
black dog, who was smelling it in a puzzled, thoughtful way, _sans
rancune_. A cart, with an inscription on it that said its owner was
"Horse-Slaughterer to Her Majesty," came thundering down the street,
shaking three drovers seriously. The dog, illuminated by some new idea,
started back to bark in a sudden panic-stricken way. Who could tell what
new scourge this was that dogdom had to contend with?

Her Majesty's Horse-Slaughterer pulled his cart up just in time. It
would else have run over a man who was picking the kitten up. All the
males concerned exchanged execrations, and then the cart went on. The
dog's anxiety to smell the phenomenon survived, till the man kicked him
and told him to go to Hell.

"Now who does this here little beggar belong to?" said the man, whom
Mrs. Riley did not like the looks of. Mrs. Tapping claimed the cat, and
expressed wonder as to how it had got out of the basket. Heaven only
knew! It is only superhuman knowledge, divine or diabolical, that knows
how cats get out of baskets; or indeed steel safes, or anything.

"As I do not think, mister," said Mrs. Tapping--deciding at the last
moment not to say "my good man"--"it would be any use to try getting of
it inside of this basket out here in the street, let alone its aptitude
for getting out when got in, I might trouble you to be so kind as to
fetch it into my shop next door here, by the scruff of its neck
preferable.... Thank you, mister!" She had had some idea of making it
"Sir," but thought better of it.

The kitten, deposited on the counter, concerned itself with a
blue-bottle fly. The man remarked that it was coming on to rain. Mrs.
Tapping had not took notice of any rain, but believed the statement. Why
is it that one accepts as true any statement made by a visibly
disreputable male? Mrs. Tapping did not even look out at the door, for
confirmation or contradiction. She was so convinced of this rain that
she suggested that the man should wait a few minutes to see if it didn't
hold up, because he had no umbrella. His reply was:--"Well, since you're
so obliging, Missis, I don't mind if I do. My mate I'm waiting for,
he'll be along directly." He declined a chair or stool, and waited,
looking out at the door into the _cul de sac_ street that led to Sapps
Court, opposite. Mrs. Tapping absented herself in the direction of a
remote