=THE CAT 



Mentu 



The wild nature in Mentu is as strong as his 

 inbred civilization; and the two are at strife to- 

 gether. His heart and his appetite lead him back 

 and back to the house; keep him there for days 

 together, a dainty fine gentleman, warm-hearted, 

 capricious. But the spirit of the wild creature 

 rises in him, and the night comes when, at bedtime, 

 no Mentu is waiting at the door to be let in; or 

 in the evening, as he hears the wind rise and stir 

 the branches, even while the rain beats on the 

 window pane, the compelling power of out-of-doors 

 is on him, and he must go ; and when the window 

 is lifted, and the night air streams in, there is but 

 one leap into the darkness. 



He will return early in the morning, tired and 

 satiate, or spring in some evening as the dusk 

 gathers, with gleaming eyes where the light of 

 the wild woods flickers and dies down in the com- 

 fortable firelight of an English home. 



This is the true cat, the real Mentu, this wild 

 creature who must go on his mysterious errands; 

 or who, I rather believe it, plunges out to revel in 

 the intoxication of innumerable scents, unaccounted 

 sounds, and the half -revealed forms of wood and 

 field in twilight, in darkness, or in dawn. In his 



114 



