128 The Book of Cats. 



attention was paid to it. However, on opening the 

 door next morning, there lay the very Cat which he 

 thought was forty miles away, her feet all cut and 

 blistered, from the hardness of the road, and her 

 silky fur all clotted and matted together with dust 

 and dirt. She had her reward ; however her thievish 

 propensities might annoy him, the worthy vicar re- 

 solved never again to send her away from the house 

 she loved so well, and exerted herself so nobly to 

 regain. 



The Rev. Mr. Wood furnishes some curious par- 

 ticulars of two commercial Cats of his acquaintance, 

 which he very comically describes : — 



" I will tell you," says he, '' something about our 

 Mincing Lane Cats. Their home was in the cellar, 

 and their habits and surroundings, as you may 

 imagine, from the locality, were decidedly commer- 

 cial. We had one cunning old black fellow, whose 

 wisdom was acquired by sad experience. In early 

 youth, he must have been very careless ; he then 

 was always getting in the way of the men and 

 the wine cases, and frequent were the disasters he 

 suffered through coming into collision with moving 

 bodies. His ribs had often been fractured, and 

 when nature repaired them, she must have handed 

 them over to the care of her ' prentice hand,' for the 



