Concerning my Other Cats 



ing mistress was not looking, he managed to step off 

 on that foot quite lively, especially if his mortal 

 enemy, a disreputable black tramp, skulked across 

 the yard. But let Thomas Erastus see a feminine 

 eye gazing anxiously at him through an open win- 

 dow, and he immediately hobbled on three legs ; then 

 he would stop and sit down and assume so pathetic 

 an expression of patient suffering that the mistress's 

 heart would melt, and Thomas Erastus would find 

 himself being borne into the house and placed on the 

 softest sofa. Once she caught him down cellar. 

 There is a window to which he has easy access, and 

 where he can go in and out a hundred times a day. 

 Evidently he had planned to do so at that moment. 

 But seeing his fond mistress, he sat down on the 

 cellar floor, and with his most fetching expression 

 gazed wistfully back and forth from her to the win- 

 dow. And of course she picked him up carefully 

 and put him on the window ledge. Thomas Erastus 

 has all the innocent guile of a successful politician. 

 He could manage things slicker than the political 

 bosses, an' he would. 



One summer Thomas Erastus moved — an event 

 of considerable importance in his placid existence. 

 He had to travel a short distance on the steam-cars ; 

 and worse, he needs must endure the indignity of 

 travelling that distance in a covered basket. But his 

 dignity would not suffer him to do more than send 

 forth one or two mournful wails of protest. Aftei 



41 



