The Slum Cat 
VIII 
The spring was doing its New York best. The 
dirty little English Sparrows were tumbling over 
each other in their gutter brawls, Cats yowled all 
night in the areas, and the Fifth Avenue fam- 
ily were thinking of their country residence. 
They packed up, closed house, and moved off 
to their summer home, some fifty miles away, 
and Pussy, in a basket, went with them. 
“Just what she needed: a change of air 
and scene to wean her away from her former 
owners and make her happy.” 
The basket was lifted into a Rumble-shaker. 
New sounds and passing smells were entered 
and left. A turn in the course was made. 
Then a roaring of many feet, more swinging of 
the basket; a short pause, another change of 
direction, then some clicks, some bangs, a long 
shrill whistle, and door-bells of a very big front 
door; a rumbling, a whizzing, an unpleasant 
smell, a hideous smell, a growing horrible, hate- 
ful choking smell, a deadly, griping, poison- 
ous stench, with roaring that drowned poor 
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