I am willing to acknowledge that until lately, when I was privileged to entertain a cat under my roof for a fortnight, my knowledge of these noble beings was only academic.  I had read what the poets have to say about them—Wordsworth and Swinburne, Cowper and Gray; I knew that “cat” was the only word in the English language that had a vocative, “puss”; I knew that Southey mourned that his kitten should ever attain to cathood, that the Egyptians were very fond of cats and that Lord Roberts is not.  Then I had seen cats in the street, and admired the spirit with which a homeless cat with no visible means of subsistence would put shame into the heart of a well-fed terrier.  Lying awake by night I had heard their barbaric song ringing like a challenge in the ears of civilisation, and had p. 175wondered whether some unknown Strauss might not revolutionise the music of the future by aid of their passionate harmonies.  But I had never moved in their society, and therefore I would not understand them.  In those days I should probably have thought that the recent message of the Postmaster-General to the Press, to the effect that cats of the old General Post Office had been found comfortable homes, was trivial.  And I remember with shame that I watched the malevolent antics of the caricature of a cat that appears in the “Blue Bird” without indignation.

I do not propose to give the events of the fortnight in detail, but rather to summarise them for the benefit of others who, like myself, may be called upon unexpectedly to entertain a feline guest.  The name of my visitor was Kim, though I am told that most cats are called William Pitt, after the statesman.  He was a short-haired tabby cat, some eighteen months old, and a fine, large fellow for his age.  While he was with me he usually wore a white waistcoat, and there was a white mark on his face, as if some p. 176milk had been spilled there when he was a kitten.  His eyes were very large and of the colour of stage sunlight, and they haunted me from the moment when I raised the lid of the hamper in which he arrived.  They were always significant and always inscrutable, but I could not help staring into them in the hope of discovering their meaning.  I think he knew they fascinated me, for he would keep them wide open and full of secrets for hours at a time.

I had been informed that his name was Kim because he was the little friend of all the world, but at the first I found him reticent and of an independent disposition.  I had always believed that cats purred when you stroked them, but when I stroked him he would endure it in silence for a minute and then retire to a corner of the room and make an elaborate and, under the circumstances, uncomplimentary toilet.  In my inexperience I was afraid that he had taken a dislike to me, but one evening, after he had been with me three days, he climbed into my lap and went to sleep.  My pipe was on the mantelpiece, and as Kim weighed p. 177over twelve pounds my legs grew very cramped; but I knew better than to disturb him, and he slept very comfortably till two in the morning.  He repeated this compliment on several occasions, but when I lifted him into my lap he always got off immediately, and made me feel that I had been ill-treating him.  His choice of sleeping-places was strange.  If I was reading, he waited till I laid the book down on the table and then fell asleep on top of it.  When I was writing and he had grown weary of turning his head from side to side to follow the birdlike flight of the pen to the ink-pot, he loved to settle himself down on the wet manuscript and blink drowsily at my embarrassment.  Once when I ventured to lift him off he sulked under the table all the afternoon, and I did not repeat the experiment.  He seemed to be a very sensitive cat.

Of course he was too old to play with me, but he had famous games by himself with corks and pieces of paper.  Sooner or later he would drive these under one of the bookcases, and would sit down and mew p. 178plaintively until I went and raked them out for him.  Then he would get up and walk away as if such toys were beneath his dignity.  The one fault I found in ............