THE CAT 251 



night. With them it feels the ground, gets its bear- 

 ings, explores nooks and corners. Let a mouse so 

 much as graze one of those long hairs sticking out 

 in all directions, and that is enough to warn the cat. 

 Immediately the jaw snaps and the claw seizes. 

 Moral : never cut a cat 's mustaches ; you would place 

 it in a sad predicament, seriously impairing its effi- 

 ciency as a mouser." 



"That 's what I've heard said," Louis re- 

 marked, "though I didn't know the reason for it. 

 Now I see that to deprive a cat of its mustaches, out 

 of childish mischievousness, is like depriving a blind 

 man of his cane." 



"In my humble opinion," Uncle Paul continued, 

 "the cat has been slandered. The eloquent his- 

 torian of animals, Buff on, speaks thus about the cat : 

 'It is an unfaithful servant, kept only out of neces- 

 sity, as the enemy of another and still more trouble- 

 some inhabitant of our houses, otherwise not to be 

 got rid of.' " 



"Buff on means the rat and mouse?" was Emile's 

 query. 



"Evidently. 'Although cats,' says he, 'especially 

 when young, have pretty ways, they have at the same 

 time an innate malice, a treacherous disposition, a 

 perverse nature, which age increases and education 

 only masks. From being determined thieves they 

 become, under domestication, docile and fawning 

 rogues : they have the same skill, the same clever- 

 ness, the same taste for mischief, the same tendency 

 to petty pilfering, as have rogues. Like them, they 



