286 THE FIRESIDE SPHINX 



glad to see you here to-night." " Hope you were 

 not very tired yesterday." After which she slips 

 softly away to resume her interrupted meditations. 

 To take offence at such polite withdrawal is the 

 sheer arrogance of ownership, and it is- in but a 

 limited sense that we can be said to own a cat. 

 " I have it of nature that I must seek my own pro- 

 fit," she says with Epictetus ; and if the most gen- 

 erous of the Stoics claimed as much, why not the 

 least enthusiastic of animals ? 



Nothing, however, could be more lifelike than 

 the picture Mr. Benson draws of Pussy stealing 

 through the dusk, preoccupied yet observant, and 

 betraying to none the dubious purpose of her stroll. 

 It is finer, because less wordy, than Mr. William 

 Watson's " Study in Contrasts," which presents 

 once more to our patient consideration the deep 

 dissimilarity of cat and dog ; — of the collie, blue- 

 blooded, aristocratic, yet sadly lacking in distinction, 

 and the Angora, who regards him with languid and 

 indolent contempt. Beneath the dog's company 

 manners, beautiful manners befitting any court, 

 Mr. Watson detects a substratum of vulgar impet- 

 uosity. For all his airs and graces, for all his noble 

 head and silky coat, he is at heart 



" The bustling despot of the mountain flock, 

 And pastoral dog-of-all-work." 



