OUR PETS. 63 



on wing. His liberty was seldom restricted, unless 

 he had been guilty of some prank more than usually 

 audacious, and then his punishment would be a day 

 or two's confinement, which he greatly hated ; but he 

 soon managed to coax us into giving him his freedom, 

 and manifested the utmost gratitude to his liberator. 

 His moral sense was at least as obtuse as a cat's. He 

 delighted in stealing, simply as it seemed for its 

 own sake, not because he could make any use of his 

 plunder. Spoons, needles, wires, pirns of thread, balls 

 of worsted, little one's shoes and socks, anything and 

 everything that was portable to which he could get 

 access, he would carry off, and carefully hide, covering 

 them over with bits of turf, and then wiping his bill 

 in the most self-satisfied manner hop away as though 

 he had performed a highly meritorious action. Alas 

 for the half-knitted stockiug which might be left on a 

 chair or table if Grabble was about ! The wires would 

 quickly be pulled out and removed, and the stocking 

 torn to tatters. I caught him one day — and an in- 

 tensely droll figure he cut — hopping out of doors with 

 a pipe in his bill. On another occasion he made off 

 with a piece of tobacco. We never could make out 

 whether he had any intention of himself trying the 

 soothing effects of the weed. He had, or affected to 

 have, a great dislike to bare feet, as the little boys who 

 often came to the house with baskets of sillacks or with 

 messages, had but too good reason to know. On the 

 whole, he was on terms of very good friendship with 

 the dogs and cats ; but it always afforded him exquisite 



