The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1892-12-10
THE GOOD MIsER.
with Some Notes on an Illustrious Lin
cage.

lie is gOOQ mlSor, SAID Une golden
Fraulein, whose hair is yellow like ripe
corn;-her dimples deepening as she
spoke. looked at her with wonder
wide eyes, for the phrase puzzled me.
We do not call misers good, even when
they are dead; and never before knew
cat to be accused of parsimony.
s'Yes"' explanatory repeated the 9TH
er Fraulein, whose eyes are like midnight
and whose voice is music; '.he is a good
miser. He catches many MICE
And that is how the cat came to be
called 1.-THE Good Miser," a name he
bears to this day. 1t should be said
parenthetically, that he is not he. but
she; though we did not know it till
after the christening, when Miser pro-
duced kitten, appropriately named
Spendthrift, In evidence. The same mis-
take, it may be remembered, was made
about the sex of Old Abe, Wisconsin's
famous war-eagle, and not discovered
until year or two ago, when the bird
began to lay eggs.
The Good Miser is black cat and,
therefore, as even the most ignorant
peasant in Russia knows, will become
devil at the end Of seven years. This
fact in supernatural history is not gener
ally understood here; for ours is a young
country yet, and we have much to learn
At present she is not looked upon as the
potential devil she undoubtedly is, but
in the light of an angel, or beautiful,
swift goddess, at whose white feet flor
the cat is stocl1inged) the whole house
hold adoringly kneels. Still, the demon
nature does crop out now and then, and
in her sport she sometimes exhibits the
ferocious frivolity of a French revolution
list. Like the revolutionist, too, she is
tyrant. She exacts the constant and
undivided homage of her abjectly sub
missive subjects, and we all pass the ma
jor part of our days, like fools at court,
in striving to amuse our capricious mis-
tress. My time is no longer my own,
but altogether at her disposal. Were it
not for her my book, my magnano opus
might be written. should like to treat
her as Fontenelle did his famous puss.
He read his verses to her, and if she purred
approval he proceeded to inflict them
upon the public; trying it on the cat,
instead of the dog as modern playwrights
do. But / hardly believe she would
stand til wouldn't, if were cat.
No monarch was ever more absolute.
No cat in all Bubastis, where Pasht was
worshipped in a hundred temples, was
ever more devoutly served than Miser in
the house she has deigned to make her
own. Even the butcher boy, an irrever-
emit youth given to gliding at those in au-
thority, ko-tows as he comes into her
presence. 1t is surely but her due. I
have ikened her to beautiful, swift
goddess; and so she is-the daughter of
a divine dynasty which ruled in Egypt
before Memphis was, and while the
Pyramids were still in the quarry.
Doubtless it was for their piety that the
Egyptians were given the earth, OF all of
it that was then worth having. 1t will
be noted that when cat-worship decayed
the Egyptian monarchy and priesthood
fell and the land passed to the stranger.
Awful lesson, which we should do well
to heed!
Though the elder gods were displaced
and new gods came, the children of Pasht
still hold the loving service of mortals.
There is no longer golden cat at Syene
to be sure, and Bouhaki, 1.-THE Theban
beast" no longer SITS with gold rings in
his ears, in the palace of King Hama.
But from the time of Mahomet's cat,
Muezza, to the time of Chateaubriand's
cat, Micetto, the epal-eyed Tabby, 'the
silken creature has been the bette annie
the friend-beast-of man. That this
is gracious condescension to us upstairs
on the part of most ancient family
none can misdoubt; for even if her divin-
ity be disputed, it must be confessed that
the cat comes of far longer descent than
we. None of us, however high his sta
tion can boast of an older origin than
that asserted in the epitaph on the tomb
stone of the Scotch peasant:
Johnnie Carnegie lais heer,
Descendit Of Adam and Eve,
Gif ony can gang hieher,
Use willing him leve,