272 THE FIRESIDE SPHINX 



As for the cats who live in newspaper offices, 

 in police stations, and in the ijnrestful society of 

 fire companies, they acquire distinctive habits of 

 their own, and appear strangely remote from placid 

 dwellers by domestic hearths. The nocturnal habits 

 of the journalist suit the " night-waking " pussy to 

 perfection ; but the din, the confusion, the vast lit- 

 tered spaces of the printing rooms would seem to 

 make them the least desirable of earthly homes. 

 Yet newspaper cats love these tumultuous sur- 

 roundings, forget the serenity of gentler days, lose 

 all aspirations towards sweetness and light, and 

 abandon themselves unreservedly to the joys of 

 scurry and excitement. Their kittens, roughly 

 reared, tumble about under giant presses and 

 hurrying feet, escaping destruction only by that 

 marvellous faculty for self-preservation which bids 

 defiance to danger. 



" Had we not nine lives, 

 I wis I ne'er had seen again tliy sausage shop, St. Ives." 



The vulgar and deleterious habit of eating black 

 beetles is begun so early, and continued so persist- 

 ently, that the journalistic kitling, like Rappaccini's 

 daughter, is inured to poisonous food. It grows up 

 happy and healthy in an atmosphere apparently as 

 uncongenial as that of the police station, where its 

 little cousins are making a wide acquaintance with 

 felony; or as that of the fire company's stables, 



