Cats. 45 



drawing-room ; whilst monkeys are so incorrigibly mis- 

 chievous that it is impossible to tolerate them, notwith- 

 standing the nearness of the relationship. But you may 

 have a cat in the room with you without anxiety about any- 

 thing except eatables. He will rob a dish if he can get at 

 it, but he will not, except by the rarest of accidents, dis- 

 place a sheet of paper or upset an inkstand. The presence 

 of a cat is positively soothing to a student, as the presence 

 of a quiet nurse is soothing to the irritability of an invalid. 

 It is agreeable to feel that you are not absolutely alone, and 

 it seems to you, as you work, as if the cat took care that 

 all her movements should be noiseless, purely out of con- 

 sideration for your comfort. Then, if you have time to 

 caress her, you know that there will be purring responses, 

 and why inquire too closely into the sincerity of her grati- 

 tude .■■ There have been instances of people who surrounded 

 themselves with cats ; old maids have this fancy sometimes, 

 which is intelligible, because old maids delight in having 

 objects on which to lavish their inexhaustible kindness, and 

 their love of neatness and comfort is in harmony with the 

 neat habits of these comfort-appreciating creatures. A dog 

 on velvet is evidently out of place, he would be as happy 

 on clean straw, but a cat on velvet does not awaken any 

 sense of the incongruous. It is more difficult to understand 

 how men of business ever take to cats. A well-known 

 French politician, who certainly betrayed nothing feminine 

 in his speeches, was so fond of cats that it was impossible 

 to dine peaceably at his house on account of four licensed 

 fehne marauders which promenaded upon the dinner-table, 

 helping themselves to everything, and jumping about the 

 shoulders of the guests. It may be observed that in Paris 

 cats frequently appear upon the table in another shape. 

 I once stayed in a house not very far from the great tri- 



