206 THE FIRESIDE SPHINX 



a vigorous and elastic spring she leaped upon the 

 perch. The parrot, seeing the imminence of his 

 danger, cried in a voice as deep as M. Prudhomme's : 

 ' As-tu dejeune, Jacquot ? ' 



" This utterance so terrified the cat that she fell 

 backwards. The blare of a trumpet, the report of 

 a pistol, could not have frightened her more thor- 

 oughly. All her ornithological ideas were over- 

 thrown. 



" ' Et de quoi ? — Du roti du roi ? ' continued the 

 parrot. 



"Then might we, the observers, read in the coun- 

 tenance of Madame Theophile : ' This is not a 

 bird ; it speaks ; it is a gentleman.' " 



The cat so loved and honoured by her master had 

 other tastes less carnal, other instincts less mur- 

 derous. She delighted in perfumes and in music. 

 India shawls, lifted from their boxes of sandalwood, 

 and exhaling faint aromatic odours of the East, in- 

 toxicated her voluptuously. She stretched her deli- 

 cate limbs on their soft folds, and dreamed vague 

 dreams of caravans, and of fair Persian pussies car- 

 ried over the red sands of Arabia. The vibrations 

 of the piano or of the human voice thrilled her 

 with pleasure and with pain. She would listen 

 drowsily while the music was faint and low ; but 

 high notes irritated her nerves, and if a soprano 

 grew too piercingly sweet, she would leap up and 



