THE CAT 



Nero 



I own that when Agrippina brought her first- 

 born son — aged two days — and established him 

 in my bedroom closet, the plan struck me at the 

 start as inconvenient. I had prepared another 

 nursery for the little Claudius Nero, and I en- 

 deavoured for a while to convince his mother that 

 my arrangements were best. But Agrippina was 

 inflexible. The closet suited her in every respect; 

 and, with charming and irresistible flattery, she 

 gave me to understand in the mute language I 

 knew so well that she wished her baby boy to be 

 under my immediate protection. " I bring him to 

 you because I trust you," she said as plainly as 

 looks can speak. " Downstairs they handle him all 

 the time, and it is not good for kittens to be han- 

 dled. Here he is safe from harm, and here he 

 shall remain." After a few weak remonstrances, 

 the futility of which I too clearly understood, her 

 persistence carried the day. I removed my cloth- 

 ing from the closet, laid a rug upon the floor, 

 had the door taken from its hinges, and resigned 

 myself for the first time in my life to the daily and 

 hourly companionship of an infant. 



I was amply rewarded. People who require their 

 household cat to rear her offspring in some remote 



102 



