Concerning Some Historic Cats 



to stay out until morning. His chest was delicate, 

 and one very chilly night he caught a cold which 

 rapidly developed into phthisis. At the end of a 

 year of coughing, poor Don Pierrot had wasted to a 

 skeleton, and his coat, once so silky, was a dull, 

 harsh white. His large, transparent eyes looked un- 

 naturally large in his shrunken face : the pink of his 

 little nose had faded, and he dragged himself slowly 

 along the sunny side of the wall with a melancholy 

 air, looking at the yellow autumnal leaves as they 

 danced and whirled in the wind. Nothing is so 

 touching as a sick animal : it submits to suffering 

 with such gentle and sad resignation. We did all 

 in our power to save Pierrot : a skilful doctor came 

 to see him, felt his pulse, sounded his lungs, and 

 ordered him ass's milk. He drank the prescribed 

 beverage very readily out of his own especial china 

 saucer. For hours together he lay stretched upon 

 my knee, like the shadow of a sphinx. I felt his 

 spine under my finger tips like the beads of a rosary, 

 and he tried to respond to my caresses by a feeble 

 purr that resembled a death-rattle. On the day of 

 his death he was lying on his side panting, and sud- 

 denly, with a supreme effort, he rose and came to 

 me. His large eyes were opened wide, and he gazed 

 at me with a look of intense supplication, a look that 

 seemed to say, ' Save me, save me, you, who are a 

 man.' Then he made a few faltering steps, his eyes 

 became glassy, and he fell down, uttering so lament- 



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