next
day his dear voice hummed again in my ears.

"Ah! you also are in love, dear Beauty," my mistress said to me,
observing me extended on the carpet, the paws flat, the body in soft
abandon, bathing in the poetry of my memories.

I was astonished that a woman should show so much intelligence, and so,
raising my dorsal spine, I began to rub up against her legs and to purr
lovingly with the deepest chords of my contralto voice.

While my mistress was scratching my head and caressing me and while I
was looking at her tenderly a scene occurred in Bond Street which had
terrible results for me.

Puck, a nephew of Puff's, in line to succeed him and who, for the time
being, lived in the barracks of the Life Guards, ran into my dear
Brisquet. The sly Captain Puck complimented the _attache_ on his success
with me, adding that I had resisted the most charming Toms in England.
Brisquet, foolish, vain Frenchman that he was, responded that he would
be happy to gain my attention, but that he had a horror of Cats who
spoke to him of temperance, the Bible, etc.

"Oh!" said Puck, "she talks to you then?"

Dear French Brisquet thus became a victim of English diplomacy, but
later he committed one of these impardonable faults which irritate all
well-bred Cats in England. This little idiot was truly very
inconsistent. Did he not bow to me in Hyde Park and try to talk with me
familiarly as if we were well acquainted? I looked straight through him
coldly and severely. The coachman seeing this Frenchman insult me
slashed him with his whip. Brisquet was cut but not killed and he
received the blow with such nonchalance, continuing to look at me, that
I was absolutely fascinated. I loved him for the manner in which he took
his punishment, seeing only me, feeling only the favour of my presence,
conquering the natural inclination of Cats to flee at the slightest
warning of hostility. He could not know that I came near dying, in spite
of my apparent coldness. From that moment I made up my mind to elope.
That evening, on the roof, I threw myself tremblingly into his arms.

"My dear," I asked him, "have you the capital necessary to pay damages
to old Puff?"

"I have no other capital," replied the French Cat, laughing, "than the
hairs of my moustache, my four paws, and this tail." Then he swept the
gutter with a proud gesture.

"Not any capital," I cried, "but then you are only an adventurer, my
dear!"

"I love adventures," he said to me