Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1902-09-13
CATS AND CAT-LORE.

fined caterwaHl 81 Thomas cat with a
powerful alto voice There came an an
swering hign soprano wall, aud the nightly
due was on.
Loyeson Anita, the poet, put down his
I pen, pushed his hands through his album
dant hair, drew a little harder at has pipe,
and went to the window to gaze out into
the moonlight that hathed in is efulgence
the pretty village Of Dingie in the Myrtles.
Il hate cats" he said. "Confound EN-.
Confound all cats -alway-cats of all col
ors, black, white, gray; by night a nui-
sance, and by day-confound the catsi Here,
come 70 this bowery Eden bubbling over
with JOS at the thought OF escaping from
the ceaseless roar and rattle OF the city,
TO be disturbed by cats! Why, their noise
Is more destructive to inspiration, more
frying to the nerves than the changing of a
hundred trolley cars. No, the comparison
won't do. There is certain fascination, a
strange, wild, stirring harmony in the diapa-
son oil the city's hum, and in the singing
OF the rushing trolleys Whereas cats
He ceased with a gesture indicating that
words failed him in which to express his
opinion of the offending felines.
Mrs. Loyeson Anita, who, while making
a pretense Of working at some embroidery,
had been rocking herself in contented indo-
lence and watching the changing express
sion on her husbands handsome face as he
wrestled with the muse, laughed the little
ripping laugh that was one OF her many
charms, and that from the very first time
he had heard it had always been the sweet
est music to his ears.
well, it can't be helped, she said. Let
Harculaa himself do what ha NAV the cat
will new
There are such things as guns, and air
guns at that. BY Jove, happy thought!
Ill get one. They say you can kill cat
with an airgun at | don't know how many
yards"
"Fie you wouldn't hurt poor harmless,
necessary pussy! Besides, you forget, dear,
that cat mas nine lives"
ooh, nc, won't do a thing to poor pussy.
Did you ever hear anything like 1t in your
life?"
Loveson Anita put his fingers in his ears
and gazed desperately around for nus
sie.
And them" continued his wife, If you
were TO shoot a cat you would be filled
with remorse and haunted by a ghostly
tabby for the rest of your days. Didn't
see you release a struggling fly from that
sticky paper Nora keeps in the kitehen?"
They are no good, anyway. persisted
the poet, with growing wrath They ought
as a pubic nuisance TO be exterminated.'
They catch mice
"Not as well as a mousetrap. And they
are cruel and treacherous. They don t kill
their prey right off,. as other and self-re-
specting animals do, but needs must make
sport OF h and subject it TO the refinement
OF torture. And they are that deceitfui
and caprieious you never know how to take
tnem-just like women. Somebody says
somewhere that if cat has nine lives,
woman has nine cats lives"
on"
That is, of course, other women. You
are not like other women"
What do you know about other women,
pray?" demanded Mrs. Loveson Anita WITH
a suspicion OF aspeiity and flushing slightly.
Nothing, nothing, of course, from per-
sonal experience, my dear. But they have
the reputation. It's well-known fact"
oh, is it? Indeed"
Eyes, and as | am saying" went on the
poet, evasively, they are no good, they are
utterly worthless, they are tit for nothing
on eafln-tbe cats, L mean.
'Well, manufacturers make muffs and
.boas and all kinds OF things with the skins.
DO they? Then I'm glad to know tne
brutes serve some useful purpose-when
they are dead. Now dog"
"Never mind about dogs We are talk
ing about cats, and my purpose is to prove
that they are good for something"
Yes, I've heard of it raining cats and
dogs"
I'm some parts of France they eat cats!"
"Peuh!"
"You needn't look incredulous--they dc
They call them gbier de la rue'-stree.
game-and in stew you wouldn't know
the difference between cat and rab
bit"
You have tasted it?'
ooh, no. denied Mrs. Loveson Anita,
hastily. "At least not to my knowledge.
but I've read about it..
"Then they are principally useful as a
dainty to tickle the palates Of some French
epicures, take it. | can't imagine any
more ways than those you have enumerated
in which they can render service to man
kind"
They are useful as timepieces."
What"
Il am perfectly serious. In China tnSv
serve as very handy clocks. Its this way
The eyeball of cat contracts constantly
from dawn until noon, at which hour it is
merely thin horizontal line. From noon
the eyeball gradually dilates until it reaches
full expansion at shutdown SO that in
places where there are no clocks or dials
or where there are dials and the day is
cloudy a Chinaman just picks up cat and
learns tae hour by looking at its eyes"
Il had no idea that you had made a
special study of cat lore, but there's no
use talking, you Nassar graduates known
everything under the sun.
Cats have still another virtue Rheu-
matism can be cured by rubbing the af
fscted part with a ginger-colored pussy"
"You are a veritable encyclopaedia, dear"
THAT is nothing | have lots of talents
you haven't yet discovered. However, that
will do for the present, and it now behooves
you--the duet having terminated-to sit
right down and indite an ode to the Cat OF
Cats"
"Strophes to a cat--catastrophes can't
do it, but | viii dash off rhapsodic stan
zas ad libitum to the most adorable little