208 THE FIRESIDE SPHINX 



open upon the table, would lie down on it, turn over 

 the edges of the leaves with his paw, and, after a 

 time, fall asleep, for all the world as if he had been 

 reading a fashionable novel. He gave a good deal 

 of attention to my work, and, while I wrote, would 

 follow the movement of my pen with serious scru 

 tiny, taking note of each new line, and sometimes 

 pushing the penholder gently from my fingers, as 

 though anxious to add a few words of his own. He 

 was an aesthetic cat, like Hoffmann s Murr, and had, 

 I strongly suspect, been guilty of writing his me 

 moirs ; scribbling away probably at night, in some 

 shadowy gutter, by the light of his own lambent 

 eyes. Unhappily these invaluable reminiscences 

 have been lost. 



&quot; Don Pierrot made a point of never going to bed 

 until I came home. He used to wait for me in the 

 hall, greet me with friendly purrs, and precede me 

 to my chamber like a page. I have no doubt that, 

 if I had asked him, he would have carried the can 

 dlestick. He slept on the back of my bedstead, 

 carefully balanced like a bird on a bough, and, when 

 I awoke in the morning, would jump down and 

 nestle beside me until I arose. He was strict as a 

 concierge, however, in his notions of the proper 

 time for all good people to be indoors, and would 

 tolerate nothing later than midnight. In those 

 days I belonged to a little society, known as The 



