Concerning Cats 



winter I used to bring home a bunch of Parma or 

 Russian violets every day or two, and put them in a 

 small glass bowl of water. It soon became necessary 

 to put them on the highest shelf in the room, and 

 even then Pompey would find them. Often have I 

 placed them on the piano, and a few minutes later 

 seen him enter the room, lift his nose, give a few 

 sniffs, and then go straight to the piano, bury his 

 nose in the violets, and hold it there in perfect 

 ecstacy. And usually, wherever they were placed, 

 the bunch was found the next morning on the floor, 

 where Pompey had carried the violets, and holding 

 them between his paws for a time, had surfeited 

 himself with their delicious fragrance. 



Still, I am not prepared to say that Pompey had 

 any word for violets, or for anything else that minis- 

 tered to his delight. It was enough for him to be 

 happy ; and he had better ways of expressing it. 



Cats do have the power of making people under- 

 stand what they want done, but so far as my knowl- 

 edge of them goes, some of the most intelligent ones 

 "talk " the least. Thomas Erastus, whose intelligence 

 sometimes amounts to a knowledge that seems almost 

 uncanny, seldom utters a sound. 



There is — or was — a black cat belonging to the 

 city jail of a Californian town, named " Inspector 

 Byrnes," because of his remarkable assistance to the 

 police force. When, one night, a prisoner in the jail 

 had stuffed the cracks to his cell with straw, and 



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