mselves to be harnessed to carriages, in order, to
sum up, to teach them the means of protecting themselves against the
oppression of the grand aristocracy. Although we are celebrated for our
scribbling I believe that Miss Martineau would not repudiate me. You
know that on the continent literature has become the haven of all Cats
who protest against the immoral monopoly of marriage, who resist the
tyranny of institutions, and who desire to encourage natural laws. I
have omitted to tell you that, although Brisquet's body was slashed with
a wound in the back, the coroner, by an infamous hypocrisy, declared
that he had poisoned himself with arsenic, as if so gay, so light-headed
a Cat could have reflected long enough on the subject of life to
conceive so serious an idea, and as if a Cat whom I loved could have the
least desire to quit this existence! But with Marsh's apparatus spots
have been found on a plate.

HONORE DE BALZAC.

Translated by Carl Van Vechten.

GIPSY

On a fair Saturday afternoon in November Penrod's little old dog Duke
returned to the ways of his youth and had trouble with a strange cat on
the back porch. This indiscretion, so uncharacteristic, was due to the
agitation of a surprised moment, for Duke's experience had inclined him
to a peaceful pessimism, and he had no ambition for hazardous
undertakings of any sort. He was given to musing but not to avoidable
action, and he seemed habitually to hope for something which he was
pretty sure would not happen. Even in his sleep, this gave him an air of
wistfulness.

Thus, being asleep in a nook behind the metal refuse-can, when the
strange cat ventured to ascend the steps of the porch, his appearance
was so unwarlike that the cat felt encouraged to extend its field of
reconnaissance--for the cook had been careless, and the backbone of a
three-pound whitefish lay at the foot of the refuse-can.

This cat was, for a cat, needlessly tall, powerful, independent, and
masculine. Once, long ago, he had been a roly-poly pepper-and-salt
kitten; he had a home in those days, and a name, "Gipsy," which he
abundantly justified. He was precocious in dissipation. Long before his
adolescence, his lack of domesticity was ominous, and he had formed bad
companionships. Meanwhile, he grew so rangy, and developed such length
and power of leg and such traits of character, th