62 WAYFARING NOTIONS 



enough to go against the book and take It on a 

 second time. We met' — not by any means in a 

 crowd far from it — quite a mile on the Telscombe 

 side of Newhaven, no one in sight and not a 

 house for ever so far. Naturally I ventured to 

 stroke the tiny mite ; perhaps, naturally, too, she 

 took dislike to my tyke, the mildest-mannered 

 old poodle that ever got himself smothered in 

 dirt directly he was put into company trim. 

 Anyway, before you could say the initials of 

 ''Jack Robinson," his lordship, or her ladyship, 

 was on the back of my neck, and there it, he, or 

 she stopped for the next three hours or so. 

 Perhaps it is a French cat, and said to itself, 

 '' J'y suis, j'y reste." 



Be the nationality as it may, the motto was 

 acted up to all right, and stuck to, the motto 

 and me, the kitten doing the sticking like a 

 Briton. Not an inch would it budge to oblige 

 anybody, and I couldn't reach round to shift the 

 plucky little beast, so must march ''with a black 

 cat on my shoulder" right through — or, rather, 

 round, for I skirted it for fear of being chaffed — 

 the City of Telscombe and all the way to Lewes 

 Railway Station. Thereabouts we got on better 

 terms through community of taste. After two 

 years' trial I have declared on Horlick's malted 

 milk tablets, and many a time get all the stay I 

 want between breakfast and dinner out of a dozen 

 or so. Not knowing how long the morsel of a 

 pussy cat playing Old Man of the Sea to my 

 Sindbad the Sailor might have gone without 

 refreshments — it gave me a hint by chewing my 

 ears — I tried to purchase a refresher on the road, 

 but failed. In those parts small roadside land- 

 lords are apt to be what they themselves call 



