by E. Nesbit
I
THE CAT-HOOD OF MAURICE
To have your hair cut is not painful, nor does it hurt to have yourwhiskers trimmed. But round wooden shoes, shaped like bowls, are notcomfortable wear, however much it may amuse the onlooker to see you tryto walk in them. If you have a nice fur coat like a company promoter's,it is most annoying to be made to swim in it. And if you had a tail,surely it would be solely your own affair; that any one should tie a tincan to it would strike you as an unwarrantable impertinence--to say theleast.
Yet it is difficult for an outsider to see these things from the pointof view of both the persons concerned. To Maurice, scissors in hand,alive and earnest to snip, it seemed the most natural thing in the worldto shorten the stiff whiskers of Lord Hugh Cecil by a generous inch. Hedid not understand how useful those whiskers were to Lord Hugh, both insport and in the more serious business of getting a living. Also itamused Maurice to throw Lord Hugh into ponds, though Lord Hugh onlyonce permitted this liberty. To put walnuts on Lord Hugh's feet and thento watch him walk on ice was, in Maurice's opinion, as good as a play.Lord Hugh was a very favourite cat, but Maurice was discreet, and LordHugh, except under violent suffering, was at that time anyhow, dumb.
But the empty sardine-tin attached to Lord Hugh's tail and hindlegs--this had a voice, and, rattling against stairs, banisters, and thelegs of stricken furniture, it cried aloud for vengeance. Lord Hugh,suffering violently, added his voice, and this time the family heard.There was a chase, a chorus of 'Poor pussy!' and 'Pussy, then!' and thetail and the tin and Lord Hugh were caught under Jane's bed. The tailand the tin acquiesced in their rescue. Lord Hugh did not. He fought,scratched, and bit. Jane carried the scars of that rescue for many along week.
When all was calm Maurice was sought and, after some little naturaldelay, found--in the boot-cupboard.
'Oh, Maurice!' his mother almost sobbed, 'how _can_ you? What will yourfather say?'
Maurice thought he knew what his father would do.
'Don't you know,' the mother went on, 'how wrong it is to be cruel?'
'I didn't mean to be cruel,' Maurice said. And, what is more, he spokethe truth. All the unwelcome attentions he had showered on Lord Hugh hadnot been exactly intended to hurt that stout veteran--only it wasinteresting to see what a cat would do if you threw it in the water, orcut its whiskers, or tied things to its tail.
'Oh, but you must have meant to be cruel,' said mother, 'and you willhave to be punished.'
'I wish I hadn't,' said Maurice, from the heart.
'So do I,' said his mother, with a sigh; 'but it isn't the first time;you know you tied Lord Hugh up in a bag with the hedgehog only lastTuesday week. You'd better go to your room and think it over. I shallhave to tell your father directly he comes home.'
Maurice went to his room and thought it over. And the more he thoughtthe more he hated Lord Hugh. Why couldn't the beastly cat have held histongue and sat still? That, at the time would have been adisappointment, but now Maurice wished it had happened. He sat on theedge of his bed and savagely kicked the edge of the green Kidderminstercarpet, and hated the cat.
He hadn't meant to be cruel; he was sure he hadn't; he wouldn't havepinched the cat's feet or squeezed its tail in the door, or pulled itswhiskers, or poured hot water on it. He felt himself ill-used, and knewthat he would feel still more so after the inevitable interview with hisfather.
But that interview did not take the immediately painful form expected byMaurice. His father did _not_ say, 'Now I will show you what it feelslike to be hurt.' Maurice had braced himself for that, and was lookingbeyond it to the calm of forgiveness which should follow the storm inwhich he should so unwillingly take part. No; his father was alreadycalm and reasonable--with a dreadful calm, a terrifying reason.
'Look here, my boy,' he said. 'This cruelty to dumb animals must bechecked--severely checked.'
'I didn't mean to be cruel,' said Maurice.
'Evil,' said Mr. Basingstoke, for such was Maurice's surname, 'iswrought by want of thought as well as want of heart. What about yourputting the hen in the oven?'
'You know,' said Maurice, pale but determined, 'you _know_ I only wantedto help her to get her eggs hatched quickly. It says in "Fowls for Foodand Fancy" that heat hatches eggs.'
'But she hadn't any eggs,' said Mr. Basingstoke.
'But she soon would have,' urged Maurice. 'I thought a stitch intime----'
'That,' said his father, 'is the sort of thing that you must learn notto think.'
'I'll try,' said Maurice, miserably hoping for the best.
'I intend that you shall,' said Mr. Basingstoke. 'This afternoon you goto Dr. Strongitharm's for the remaining week of term. If I find any morecruelty taking place during the holidays you will go there permanently.You can go and get ready.'
'Oh, father, _please_ not,' was all Maurice found to say.
'I'm sorry, my boy,' said his father, much more kindly; 'it's all foryour own good, and it's as painful to me as it is to you--remember that.The cab will be here at four. Go and put your things together, and Janeshall pack for you.'
So the box was packed. Mabel, Maurice's kiddy sister, cried overeverything as it was put in. It was a very wet day.
'If it had been any school but old Strong's,' she sobbed.
She and her brother knew that school well: its windows, dulled with wireblinds, its big alarm bell, the high walls of its grounds, bristlingwith spikes, the iron gates, always locked, through which gloomy boys,imprisoned, scowled on a free world. Dr. Strongitharm's was a school'for backward and difficult boys.' Need I say more?
Well, there was no help for it. The box was packed, the cab was at thedoor. The farewells had been said. Maurice determined that he wouldn'tcry and he didn't, which gave him the one touch of pride and joy thatsuch a scene could yield. Then at the last moment, just as father hadone leg in the cab, the Taxes called. Father went back into the house towrite a cheque. Mother and Mabel had retired in tears. Maurice used thereprieve to go back after his postage-stamp album. Already he wasplanning how to impress the other boys at old Strong's, and his wasreally a very fair collection. He ran up into the schoolroom, expectingto find it empty. But some one was there: Lord Hugh, in the very middleof the ink-stained table-cloth.
'You brute,' said Maurice; 'you know jolly well I'm going away, or youwouldn't be here.' And, indeed, the room had never, somehow, been afavourite of Lord Hugh's.
'Meaow,' said Lord Hugh.
'If you think cats have such a jolly time,' said LordHugh, 'why not _be_ a cat?']
'Mew!' said Maurice, with scorn. 'That's what you always say. All thatfuss about a jolly little sardine-tin. Any one would have thought you'dbe only too glad to have it to play with. I wonder how you'd like beinga boy? Lickings, and lessons, and impots, and sent back from breakfastto wash your ears. You wash yours anywhere--I wonder what they'd say tome if I washed my ears on the drawing-room hearthrug?'
'Meaow,' said Lord Hugh, and washed an ear, as though he were showingoff.
'Mew,' said Maurice again; 'that's all you can say.'
'Oh, no, it isn't,' said Lord Hugh, and stopped his ear-washing.
'I say!' said Maurice in awestruck tones.
'If you think cats have such a jolly time,' said Lord Hugh, 'why not_be_ a cat?'
'I would if I could,' said Maurice, 'and fight you----'
'Thank you,' said Lord Hugh.
'But I can't,' said Maurice.
'Oh, yes, you can,' said Lord Hugh. 'You've only got to say the word.'
'What word?'
Lord Hugh told him the word; but I will not tell you, for fear youshould say it by accident and then be sorry.
'And if I say that, I shall turn into a cat?'
'Of course,' said the cat.
'Oh, yes, I see,' said Maurice. 'But I'm not taking any, thanks. I don'twant to be a cat for always.'
'You needn't,' said Lord Hugh. 'You've only got to get some one to sayto you, "Please leave off being a cat and be Maurice again
," and thereyou are.'
Maurice thought of Dr. Strongitharm's. He also thought of the horror ofhis father when he should find Maurice gone, vanished, not to be traced.'He'll be sorry, then,' Maurice told himself, and to the cat he said,suddenly:--
'Right--I'll do it. What's the word, again?'
'----,' said the cat.
'----,' said Maurice; and suddenly the table shot up to the height of ahouse, the walls to the height of tenement buildings, the pattern on thecarpet became enormous, and Maurice found himself on all fours. He triedto stand up on his feet, but his shoulders were oddly heavy. He couldonly rear himself upright for a moment, and then fell heavily on hishands. He looked down at them; they seemed to have grown shorter andfatter, and were encased in black fur gloves. He felt a desire to walkon all fours--tried it--did it. It was very odd--the movement of thearms straight from the shoulder, more like the movement of the piston ofan engine than anything Maurice could think of at that moment.
'I am asleep,' said Maurice--'I am dreaming this. I am dreaming I am acat. I hope I dreamed that about the sardine-tin and Lord Hugh's tail,and Dr. Strong's.'
'You didn't,' said a voice he knew and yet didn't know, 'and you aren'tdreaming this.'
'Yes, I am,' said Maurice; 'and now I'm going to dream that I fight thatbeastly black cat, and give him the best licking he ever had in hislife. Come on, Lord Hugh.'
A loud laugh answered him.
'Excuse my smiling,' said the voice he knew and didn't know, 'but don'tyou see--you _are_ Lord Hugh!'
A great hand picked Maurice up from the floor and held him in the air.He felt the position to be not only undignified but unsafe, and gavehimself a shake of mingled relief and resentment when the hand set himdown on the inky table-cloth.
'You are Lord Hugh now, my dear Maurice,' said the voice, and a hugeface came quite close to his. It was his own face, as it would haveseemed through a magnifying glass. And the voice--oh, horror!--thevoice was his own voice--Maurice Basingstoke's voice. Maurice shrankfrom the voice, and he would have liked to claw the face, but he had hadno practice.
'You are Lord Hugh,' the voice repeated, 'and I am Maurice. I like beingMaurice. I am so large and strong. I could drown you in the water-butt,my poor cat--oh, so easily. No, don't spit and swear. It's badmanners--even in a cat.'
'Maurice!' shouted Mr. Basingstoke from between the door and the cab.
Maurice, from habit, leaped towards the door.
'It's no use _your_ going,' said the thing that looked like a giantreflection of Maurice; 'it's _me_ he wants.'
'But I didn't agree to your being me.'
'That's poetry, even if it isn't grammar,' said the thing that lookedlike Maurice. 'Why, my good cat, don't you see that if you are I, I mustbe you? Otherwise we should interfere with time and space, upset thebalance of power, and as likely as not destroy the solar system. Oh,yes--I'm you, right enough, and shall be, till some one tells you tochange from Lord Hugh into Maurice. And now you've got to find some oneto do it.'
('Maurice!' thundered the voice of Mr. Basingstoke.)
'That'll be easy enough,' said Maurice.
'Think so?' said the other.
'But I sha'n't try yet. I want to have some fun first. I shall catchheaps of mice!'
'Think so? You forget that your whiskers are cut off--Maurice cut them.Without whiskers, how can you judge of the width of the places you gothrough? Take care you don't get stuck in a hole that you can't get outof or go in through, my good cat.'
'Don't call me a cat,' said Maurice, and felt that his tail was growingthick and angry.
'You _are_ a cat, you know--and that little bit of temper that I see inyour tail reminds me----'
Maurice felt himself gripped round the middle, abruptly lifted, andcarried swiftly through the air. The quickness of the movement made himgiddy. The light went so quickly past him that it might as well havebeen darkness. He saw nothing, felt nothing, except a sort of longsea-sickness, and then suddenly he was not being moved. He could seenow. He could feel. He was being held tight in a sort of vice--a vicecovered with chequered cloth. It looked like the pattern, very muchexaggerated, of his school knickerbockers. It _was_. He was being heldbetween the hard, relentless knees of that creature that had once beenLord Hugh, and to whose tail he had tied a sardine-tin. Now _he_ wasLord Hugh, and something was being tied to _his_ tail. Somethingmysterious, terrible. Very well, he would show that he was not afraid ofanything that could be attached to tails. The string rubbed his fur thewrong way--it was that that annoyed him, not the string itself; and asfor what was at the end of the string, what _could_ that matter to anysensible cat? Maurice was quite decided that he was--and would keep onbeing--a sensible cat.
The string, however, and the uncomfortable, tight position between thosechequered knees--something or other was getting on his nerves.
'Maurice!' shouted his father below, and the be-catted Maurice boundedbetween the knees of the creature that wore his clothes and his looks.
'Coming, father,' this thing called, and sped away, leaving Maurice onthe servant's bed--under which Lord Hugh had taken refuge, with histin-can, so short and yet so long a time ago. The stairs re-echoed tothe loud boots which Maurice had never before thought loud; he hadoften, indeed, wondered that any one could object to them. He wonderednow no longer.
He heard the front door slam. That thing had gone to Dr.Strongitharm's. That was one comfort. Lord Hugh was a boy now; he wouldknow what it was to be a boy. He, Maurice, was a cat, and he meant totaste fully all catty pleasures, from milk to mice. Meanwhile he waswithout mice or milk, and, unaccustomed as he was to a tail, he couldnot but feel that all was not right with his own. There was a feeling ofweight, a feeling of discomfort, of positive terror. If he should move,what would that thing that was tied to his tail do? Rattle, of course.Oh, but he could not bear it if that thing rattled. Nonsense; it wasonly a sardine-tin. Yes, Maurice knew that. But all the same--if it didrattle! He moved his tail the least little soft inch. No sound. Perhapsreally there wasn't anything tied to his tail. But he couldn't be sureunless he moved. But if he moved the thing would rattle, and if itrattled Maurice felt sure that he would expire or go mad. A mad cat.What a dreadful thing to be! Yet he couldn't sit on that bed for ever,waiting, waiting, waiting for the dreadful thing to happen.
'Oh, dear,' sighed Maurice the cat. 'I never knew what people meant by"afraid" before.'
His cat-heart was beating heavily against his furry side. His limbs weregetting cramped--he must move. He did. And instantly the awful thinghappened. The sardine-tin touched the iron of the bed-foot. It rattled.
'Oh, I can't bear it, I can't,' cried poor Maurice, in a heartrendingmeaow that echoed through the house. He leaped from the bed and torethrough the door and down the stairs, and behind him came the mostterrible thing in the world. People might call it a sardine-tin, but heknew better. It was the soul of all the fear that ever had been or evercould be. _It rattled._
Maurice who was a cat flew down the stairs; down, down--the rattlinghorror followed. Oh, horrible! Down, down! At the foot of the stairs thehorror, caught by something--a banister--a stair-rod--stopped. Thestring on Maurice's tail tightened, his tail was jerked, he was stopped.But the noise had stopped too. Maurice lay only just alive at the footof the stairs.
It was Mabel who untied the string and soothed his terrors withstrokings and tender love-words. Maurice was surprised to find what anice little girl his sister really was.
'I'll never tease you again,' he tried to say, softly--but that was notwhat he said. What he said was 'Purrrr.'
It was Mabel who untied the string and soothed histerrors.]
'Dear pussy, nice poor pussy, then,' said Mabel, and she hid away thesardine-tin and did not tell any one. This seemed unjust to Mauriceuntil he remembered that, of course, Mabel thought that he was reallyLord Hugh, and that the person who had tied the tin to his tail was herbrother Maurice. Then he was half grateful. She carried him down, insoft, safe arms, to the kitche
n, and asked cook to give him some milk.
'Tell me to change back into Maurice,' said Maurice who was quite wornout by his cattish experiences. But no one heard him. What they heardwas, 'Meaow--Meaow--Meeeaow!'
Then Maurice saw how he had been tricked. He could be changed back intoa boy as soon as any one said to him, 'Leave off being a cat and beMaurice again,' but his tongue had no longer the power to ask any one tosay it.
He did not sleep well that night. For one thing he was not accustomed tosleeping on the kitchen hearthrug, and the blackbeetles were too manyand too cordial. He was glad when cook came down and turned him out intothe garden, where the October frost still lay white on the yellowedstalks of sunflowers and nasturtiums. He took a walk, climbed a tree,failed to catch a bird, and felt better. He began also to feel hungry.A delicious scent came stealing out of the back kitchen door. Oh, joy,there were to be herrings for breakfast! Maurice hastened in and tookhis place on his usual chair.
His mother said, 'Down, puss,' and gently tilted the chair so thatMaurice fell off it. Then the family had herrings. Maurice said, 'Youmight give me some,' and he said it so often that his father, who, ofcourse, heard only mewings, said:--
'For goodness' sake put that cat out of the room.'
Maurice breakfasted later, in the dust-bin, on herring heads.
But he kept himself up with a new and splendid idea. They would give himmilk presently, and then they should see.
He spent the afternoon sitting on the sofa in the dining-room, listeningto the conversation of his father and mother. It is said that listenersnever hear any good of themselves. Maurice heard so much that he wassurprised and humbled. He heard his father say that he was a fine,plucky little chap, but he needed a severe lesson, and Dr. Strongitharmwas the man to give it to him. He heard his mother say things that madehis heart throb in his throat and the tears prick behind those greencat-eyes of his. He had always thought his parents a little bit unjust.Now they did him so much more than justice that he felt quite small andmean inside his cat-skin.
He landed there on his four padded feet light as afeather.]
'He's a dear, good, affectionate boy,' said mother. 'It's only his highspirits. Don't you think, darling, perhaps you were a little hard onhim?'
'It was for his own good,' said father.
'Of course,' said mother; 'but I can't bear to think of him at thatdreadful school.'
'Well----,' father was beginning, when Jane came in with the tea-thingson a clattering tray, whose sound made Maurice tremble in every leg.Father and mother began to talk about the weather.
Maurice felt very affectionately to both his parents. The natural way ofshowing this was to jump on to the sideboard and thence on to hisfather's shoulders. He landed there on his four padded feet, light as afeather, but father was not pleased.
'Bother the cat!' he cried. 'Jane, put it out of the room.'
Maurice was put out. His great idea, which was to be carried out withmilk, would certainly not be carried out in the dining-room. He soughtthe kitchen, and, seeing a milk-can on the window-ledge, jumped upbeside the can and patted it as he had seen Lord Hugh do.
'My!' said a friend of Jane's who happened to be there, 'ain't that catclever--a perfect moral, I call her.'
'He's nothing to boast of this time,' said cook. 'I will say for LordHugh he's not often taken in with a empty can.'
This was naturally mortifying for Maurice, but he pretended not to hear,and jumped from the window to the tea-table and patted the milk-jug.
'Come,' said the cook, 'that's more like it,' and she poured him out afull saucer and set it on the floor.
Now was the chance Maurice had longed for. Now he could carry out thatidea of his. He was very thirsty, for he had had nothing since thatdelicious breakfast in the dust-bin. But not for worlds would he havedrunk the milk. No. He carefully dipped his right paw in it, for hisidea was to make letters with it on the kitchen oil-cloth. He meant towrite: 'Please tell me to leave off being a cat and be Maurice again,'but he found his paw a very clumsy pen, and he had to rub out the first'P' because it only looked like an accident. Then he tried again andactually did make a 'P' that any fair-minded person could have readquite easily.
'I wish they'd notice,' he said, and before he got the 'l' written theydid notice.
'Drat the cat,' said cook; 'look how he's messing the floor up.'
And she took away the milk.
Maurice put pride aside and mewed to have the milk put down again. Buthe did not get it.
Very weary, very thirsty, and very tired of being Lord Hugh, hepresently found his way to the schoolroom, where Mabel with patient toilwas doing her home-lessons. She took him on her lap and stroked himwhile she learned her French verb. He felt that he was growing very fondof her. People were quite right to be kind to dumb animals. Presentlyshe had to stop stroking him and do a map. And after that she kissed himand put him down and went away. All the time she had been doing the map,Maurice had had but one thought: _Ink!_
The moment the door had closed behind her--how sensible people were whoclosed doors gently--he stood up in her chair with one paw on the mapand the other on the ink. Unfortunately, the inkstand top was made todip pens in, and not to dip paws. But Maurice was desperate. Hedeliberately upset the ink--most of it rolled over the table-cloth andfell pattering on the carpet, but with what was left he wrote quiteplainly, across the map:--
'Please tell Lord Hugh to stop being a cat and be Mau rice again.'
'There!' he said; 'they can't make any mistake about that.' They didn't.But they made a mistake about who had done it, and Mabel was deprived ofjam with her supper bread.
Her assurance that some naughty boy must have come through the windowand done it while she was not there convinced nobody, and, indeed, thewindow was shut and bolted.
Maurice, wild with indignation, did not mend matters by seizing theopportunity of a few minutes' solitude to write:--
'It was not Mabel it was Maur ice I mean Lord Hugh,'
because when that was seen Mabel was instantly sent to bed.
'It's not fair!' cried Maurice.
'My dear,' said Maurice's father, 'if that cat goes on mewing to thisextent you'll have to get rid of it.'
When Jane went in to put Mabel's light out Maurice creptin too.]
Maurice said not another word. It was bad enough to be a cat, but to bea cat that was 'got rid of'! He knew how people got rid of cats. In astricken silence he left the room and slunk up the stairs--he dared notmew again, even at the door of Mabel's room. But when Jane went in toput Mabel's light out Maurice crept in too, and in the dark tried withstifled mews and purrs to explain to Mabel how sorry he was. Mabelstroked him and he went to sleep, his last waking thought amazement atthe blindness that had once made him call her a silly little kid.
If you have ever been a cat you will understand something of whatMaurice endured during the dreadful days that followed. If you have not,I can never make you understand fully. There was the affair of thefishmonger's tray balanced on the wall by the back door--the deliciouscurled-up whiting; Maurice knew as well as you do that one mustn't stealfish out of other people's trays, but the cat that he was didn't know.There was an inward struggle--and Maurice was beaten by the cat-nature.Later he was beaten by the cook.
Then there was that very painful incident with the butcher's dog, theflight across gardens, the safety of the plum tree gained only just intime.
And, worst of all, despair took hold of him, for he saw that nothing hecould do would make any one say those simple words that would releasehim. He had hoped that Mabel might at last be made to understand, butthe ink had failed him; she did not understand his subdued mewings, andwhen he got the cardboard letters and made the same sentence with themMabel only thought it was that naughty boy who came through lockedwindows. Somehow he could not spell before any one--his nerves were notwhat they had been. His brain now gave him no new ideas. He felt that hewas really growing like a cat in his min
d. His interest in his mealsgrew beyond even what it had been when they were a schoolboy's meals. Hehunted mice with growing enthusiasm, though the loss of his whiskers tomeasure narrow places with made hunting difficult.
He grew expert in bird-stalking, and often got quite near to a birdbefore it flew away, laughing at him. But all the time, in his heart, hewas very, very miserable. And so the week went by.
Maurice in his cat shape dreaded more and more the time when Lord Hughin the boy shape should come back from Dr. Strongitharm's. He knew--whobetter?--exactly the kind of things boys do to cats, and he trembled tothe end of his handsome half-Persian tail.
And then the boy came home from Dr. Strongitharm's, and at the firstsound of his boots in the hall Maurice in the cat's body fled withsilent haste to hide in the boot-cupboard.
Here, ten minutes later, the boy that had come back from Dr.Strongitharm's found him.
Maurice fluffed up his tail and unsheathed his claws. Whatever this boywas going to do to him Maurice meant to resist, and his resistanceshould hurt the boy as much as possible. I am sorry to say Maurice sworesoftly among the boots, but cat-swearing is not really wrong.
'Come out, you old duffer,' said Lord Hugh in the boy shape of Maurice.'I'm not going to hurt you.'
'I'll see to that,' said Maurice, backing into the corner, all teeth andclaws.
'Oh, I've had such a time!' said Lord Hugh. 'It's no use, you know, oldchap; I can see where you are by your green eyes. My word, they doshine. I've been caned and shut up in a dark room and given thousands oflines to write out.'
'I've been beaten, too, if you come to that,' mewed Maurice. 'Besidesthe butcher's dog.'
It was an intense relief to speak to some one who could understand hismews.
'Well, I suppose it's Pax for the future,' said Lord Hugh; 'if youwon't come out, you won't. Please leave off being a cat and be Mauriceagain.'
And instantly Maurice, amid a heap of goloshes and old tennis bats, feltwith a swelling heart that he was no longer a cat. No more of thoseundignified four legs, those tiresome pointed ears, so difficult towash, that furry coat, that contemptible tail, and that terribleinability to express all one's feelings in two words--'mew' and 'purr.'
He scrambled out of the cupboard, and the boots and goloshes fell offhim like spray off a bather.
He stood upright in those very chequered knickerbockers that were soterrible when their knees held one vice-like, while things were tied toone's tail. He was face to face with another boy, exactly like himself.
'_You_ haven't changed, then--but there can't be two Maurices.'
'There sha'n't be; not if I know it,' said the other boy; 'a boy'slife's a dog's life. Quick, before any one comes.'
'Quick what?' asked Maurice.
'Why tell me to leave off being a boy, and to be Lord Hugh Cecil again.'
Maurice told him at once. And at once the boy was gone, and there wasLord Hugh in his own shape, purring politely, yet with a watchful eyeon Maurice's movements.
'Oh, you needn't be afraid, old chap. It's Pax right enough,' Mauricemurmured in the ear of Lord Hugh. And Lord Hugh, arching his back underMaurice's stroking hand, replied with a purrrr-meaow that spoke volumes.
'Oh, Maurice, here you are. It _is_ nice of you to be nice to Lord Hugh,when it was because of him you----'
'He's a good old chap,' said Maurice, carelessly. 'And you're not half abad old girl. See?'
Mabel almost wept for joy at this magnificent compliment, and Lord Hughhimself took on a more happy and confident air.
Please dismiss any fears which you may entertain that after this Mauricebecame a model boy. He didn't. But he was much nicer than before. Theconversation which he overheard when he was a cat makes him more patientwith his father and mother. And he is almost always nice to Mabel, forhe cannot forget all that she was to him when he wore the shape of LordHugh. His father attributes all the improvement in his son's characterto that week at Dr. Strongitharm's--which, as you know, Maurice neverhad. Lord Hugh's character is unchanged. Cats learn slowly and withdifficulty.
Only Maurice and Lord Hugh know the truth--Maurice has never told it toany one except me, and Lord Hugh is a very reserved cat. He never atany time had that free flow of mew which distinguished and endangeredthe cat-hood of Maurice.
