The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1899-06-01
CAT. BOY AND CUSTARD.
One Little Touch That Upset the Calm
and Peace of a Whole
Household.

In room No. of the general post
office building there is one of the oldest
and most esteemed postal employees
in this city. He is noted for his genial
tempcrament. and so, when he entered
the office yesterday looking glum and
replied gruff,y to salutations, every
body wondered what was the matter.
whats up, old MANI" inquired q
clerk. "You look as if you had lost
your mother-in-lsw."
'Mother-in-law be durned!" replied
the erstwhile genial one, Its cat.
Say, do you want to hear hard-luck
story? Well, you've seen nice, sleek,
fat cat asleep, haven't you? Pleasing
feature of domesticity, isn't it? Did
you ever see well-browned custard
pudding set to cool in nicely secured
pan? Appetiring, amt it? Like chill
dren, do you? Bright, rosy, healthy
four-year-old boy, for instance? All OF
these things are nice in their way, amt
they? Have a suggestiyeness of home
and all that sort of thing. You never
saw a cat, a boy and custard pudding
brought into, into-well, let's call it
nnfelicitous contiguity, did you? Well,
just listen to me.
Yesterday afternoon my wife made
custard pudding and put it on the
kitchen table to cool We've got a cat,
and it took it into its head to go to sleep
on the floor just in front of the table
where the pudding was. In the mean
while my wife went into one of the
middle rooms of the fiat and began
fitting a dress on my daughter. The
two Of 'em were singing away together,
the mother thinking how pretty the
girl would look in the dress and the
girl thinking of the pleasures of the
party for which the dress was being
made, when something happened.
"You see, thai boy of mine wandered
into the kitchen and, looking around,
he began considering the comparative
amount of entertainment to be derived
from pulling the cats tail and digging
in the coal scuttle with a silver fork he
had picked up, when his eye fell upon
the custard. Now, the pan containing
it was near the edge of the table, and
the boy could just reach the top of the
pan, but he lacked some inches to en-
able him to look into it. What easier
than to tip up the pan? He did so, his
foot slipped, and in less time than it
takes to tell it the cat had about o
quart of hot custard soaking through
its fur. The cat had been lying just
beneath where the custard stood, you
see, but when the boy upset the pud-
ding that cat did not remain. On the
contrary, it rose up with prolonged
and awful yowl. Then it turned several
complicated somersaults, APPARENTLY
stood for a second on the end of its
tail and then dashed into the next
room, brushing against the girl and
leaving several picturesque splashes
Of yellow custard upon the dainty,lilac
dress being fitted upon her. Two fem
mime shrieks arose, and then there was
general activity. The daughter sought
to capture the cat, the mother evinced
a yeorning desire to lay hands on the
boy. The chase proceeded through the
fat, and finally the boy took refuge
under bed.
"'Oh, l won't spank you' the mother
said through her set teeth as she
grasped for the youngsters legs. But
something had happened to the boy,
for wall came smotheringly to the
mothers ears. She bent down to see,
and then
"'Oh, what shall we do? she cried.
'Willie's caught his head in the
springs!'
And while mother and daughter
crawled under the bed to eXtricste the
boy from his plight, the cat proceeded
to the kitchen, Tapped its fill of the now
cool custard, and hied itself to a sunny
window sill to resume its interrupted
slumbers.
That's the story; that's what's the
matter with me-" concluded the erst-
while genial one. Did you ever hear of
a household so upset?"-N. Y. Sun.