Concerning Cats 



that cats love people — in their dignified, reserved 

 way, and when they feel that their love is not wasted ; 

 that they reason, and that they seldom act from im- 

 pulse. 



I do not remember that I was born with an inordi- 

 nate fondness for cats; or that I cried for them as 

 an infant. I do not know, even, that my childhood 

 was marked by an overweening pride in them ; this, 

 perhaps, was because my cruel parents established a 

 decree, rigid and unbending as the laws of the Medes 

 and Persians, that we must never have more than one 

 cat at a time. Although this very law may argue that 

 predilection, at an early age, for harboring everything 

 feline which came in my way, which has since become 

 at once a source of comfort and distraction. 



After a succession of feline dynasties, the kings 

 and queens of which were handsome, ugly, sleek, 

 forlorn, black, white, deaf, spotted, and otherwise 

 marked, I remember fastening my affections securely 

 upon one kitten who grew up to be the ugliest, gaunt- 

 est, and dingiest specimen I ever have seen. In the 

 days of his kittenhood I christened him "Tassie" 

 after his mother ; but as time sped on, and the name 

 hardly comported with masculine dignity, this was 

 changed to Tacitus, as more befitting his sex. He 

 had a habit of dodging in and out of the front door, 

 which was heavy, and which sometimes swung to- 

 gether before he was well out of it. As a conse- 

 quence, a caudal appendage with two broken joints 



