ble and measures
taken to get rid of the officious person who strove to keep it alight.
The scheme was darkly plotted with the old maids who owned my house and
who saw the abomination of desolation in these new educational methods.
I had no written agreement to protect me. The bailiff appeared with a
notice on stamped paper. It baldly informed that I must move out within
four weeks from date, failing which the law would turn my goods and
chattels into the street. I had hurriedly to provide myself with a
dwelling. The first house which we found happened to be at Orange. Thus
was my exodus from Avignon effected.

We were somewhat anxious about the moving of the Cats. We were all of us
attached to them and should have thought it nothing short of criminal to
abandon the poor creatures, whom we had so often petted, to distress
and probably to thoughtless persecution. The shes and the kittens would
travel without any trouble: all you have to do is to put them in a
basket; they will keep quiet on the journey. But the old Tom-cats were
a serious problem. I had two: the head of the family, the patriarch; and
one of his descendants, quite as strong as himself. We decided to
take the grandsire, if he consented to come, and to leave the grandson
behind, after finding him a home.

My friend Dr. Loriol offered to take charge of the forsaken one. The
animal was carried to him at nightfall in a closed hamper. Hardly
were we seated at the evening-meal, talking of the good fortune of
our Tom-cat, when we saw a dripping mass jump through the window. The
shapeless bundle came and rubbed itself against our legs, purring with
happiness. It was the Cat.

I learnt his story next day. On arriving at Dr. Loriol's, he was locked
up in a bedroom. The moment he saw himself a prisoner in the unfamiliar
room, he began to jump about wildly on the furniture, against the
window-panes, among the ornaments on the mantelpiece, threatening to
make short work of everything. Mme. Loriol was frightened by the little
lunatic; she hastened to open the window; and the Cat leapt out among
the passers-by. A few minutes later, he was back at home. And it was no
easy matter: he had to cross the town almost from end to end; he had
to make his way through a long labyrinth of crowded streets, amid a
thousand dangers, including first boys and next dogs; lastly--and this
perhaps was an even more serious obstacle--he had to pass over the
Sorgue, a river running through