SQUIEKEL MEMOIKS 193 



and then at once proceeded to lick it carefully all over, 

 after which she placed it beside her other nursling and 

 purred placidly while she fed the two. Many a visit was 

 paid to that mansarde by schoolboys and their friends, old 

 and young, while we watched our squirrel grow and 

 develop, his black eyes open, his rat's tail become a 

 beautiful brush, his movements grow rapid and bird-like, 

 and evidently an enigma and a trial to his foster-mother. 

 One day we found her alone and waiting at the open 

 window. He was her favourite child, and she had 

 neglected the kitten for him. He was soon discovered 

 skipping nimbly about the steep roof, whence pussy suc- 

 ceeded in tempting him back to his bed. Two or three 

 weeks later we saw a weird sight, the uncanny pair, 

 mother and son, slowly descending the broad stairway of 

 the old campagne side by side, she with the proud air 

 of a chaperon introducing a distinguished debutante. 

 She led him to the garden and then left him. We never 

 caged him. He lived a merry life, chiefly in a tall tulip 

 tree close to the house, but he roamed freely, even down 

 to the lakeside. He knew our hours, and never failed to 

 drop down among us at our alfresco tea, when he would 

 rush impatiently at the ladies' pockets, where we hid 

 things to tease him, and barked at us like a small terrier 

 if we hindered him. But he was at his sweetest when 

 he visited me and mine severally very early in the morn- 

 ing before we were up. Coming in through open 

 windows, we always had dainties for him hidden under 

 the pillow, and he would sit up on the bed in front of us 

 and eat them, nuts or little fancy biscuits, slaking his 

 thirst from a tumbler of water. He always came leaping 

 to me, even from the ends of the plantation, if I called 

 " Kom, Eom." We named him Komulus, as nursed by 

 a wild beast. He did not like to be caught and held, 

 though he loved to be stroked and played with. He never 

 bit. He would bounce on to my shoulder off a high tree 

 and nibble my hair. We had suspected him of secreting 



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