94 
Pussy Meow 
At this point I interrupted Jack to have him ex- 
plain to me the meaning of “ ancestor,” and “ lineal 
descendant.” Jack was so friendly with me, I did 
not mind asking him, and he willingly explained it 
to me. 
He said that the cat that lived with Richard 
Whittington very many years ago had a son named 
Tom ; Tom had a son named Toby ; Toby had a 
son named Jack, and so they kept on having sons 
till it finally came down to him, and that made Tom 
his ancestor, and him a lineal descendant. 
Jack then told me of some of his experiences. 
He said that his ability to catch rats used to be 
quite as good as that of his early ancestor, but that 
since he lived in his present home, he had not much 
practice, there being no rats in the neighborhood, 
except an occasional one around the ash barrel. 
I asked him where he learned the business, and 
he told me that he used to live in a down-town 
boarding-house, where he sometimes killed as many 
as twenty rats in one day. But the cook caught 
one alive one day, and tied a string around his 
neck with a little bell attached, and let him go back 
to his hole ; and the ringing of the bell so fright- 
ened the other rats that they all went away. Said 
