The silver messenger. (Challis, Idaho) 1890-1912, 1903-04-07
CATS AND CAT-LORE.

III HOuuuNV llhG tAN am wa " "a PNb1 ~
pain, then rose crescendo into the well-de,
fined c%aterwaul of a Thomas cat with a
powerful alto voice. There came an an.
swering high soprano wall, and the nightly
duet was on.
Loyeson Anita, the poet, put down his
pm, pushed his hands through his album
dant hair, drew a little harder at his pipe,
and went to the window to gaze out into
the moonlight that batned in its effulgence
the pretty village Of Dingle 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 catsl Here,
| come to this bowery Eden bubbling over
with Joy at the thought of escaping from
the c~easeless roar and rattle Of the city,
to be disturbed by cats! Why, their noise
is more destructive to inspiration, more
trying to the nerves than the changing of a
hundred trolley cars. No, the comparison
won't do. There is a certain fascination, a
strange, wild, stirring harmony in the diapa-
son OF che city's hum, and in the singing
OF the rushing t~rolleyS. Whereas cats"
He ceased with a gesture indicating that
words failed him in which to express his
opinion of the offending felines.
Mrs. Loveson Anita, who, while making
a pretense OF working at som 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
Hercules himself do what he may, the cat
will new.
There are such things as guns, and air
guns at that. BY Jove, a happy thought
In get one. They say you can kill a cat
with an airgun at don't know how many
yards"
''Fiel you wouldn't hurt poor harmless,
necessary pussy Besides, you forget, dear,
that a cat has nine lives"
"0h, no, i won't do a thing to poor pussy.
Did you ever hear anything like it in YOU
hfe?"
Loveson Anita put his fingers in his ears
and gazed desperately around for a mis-
sile.
And then" continued his wife, eff 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 l
nee you release a struggling fly from that
sticky paper Nora keeps in the Kitchen
''They are no good, anyway persisted
the poet, with growing wrath. They ought
as a public nuisance to be exterminated."
They catch mice"
mot as well as a mousetrap. And they
are cruel and treaeherous. They don't kill
49, ,~ox ~.rk4 rG - otha~ nna enIf a
speeding animals do, but needs must make
sport of it and subject it to the refinement
OF torture. And they are that deceitful
and capricious you never know how to take
them-just like women. Somebody says
somewhere that if a cat has nine lives, a
woman has nine cats lives"
"0hl"
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 asperity and flushing slightly,
Nothing, nothing, of course, from per-
sonal experience, my dear. But they have
the reputation. It's a ~well-known fact"
ooh, is it? Indeed!"
Yes, and as | am saying" went on the
poet, evasively, they are no good, they are
utterly worthless, they are fit for nothing
on earth-the cats, | mean"
"Well, manufacturers make muffs and
boas and all kinds of things with the skins"
do theyg Then I'm glad to know the
brutes serve some useful purpose-when
they are dead. Now a 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 catsi'
fPeuh!"
you needn't look incredulous-they do.
They call them 'gibier de la rue'-street
game-and in a stew you wouldn't know
the difference between a cat and a rab-
bit"
you rave tasted iti'
"Oh, no." denied Mrs. Loveeon Anita,
hastily. "At least not TO my knowledge
but I've read about it,"
H'Then they are principally useful as a
dainty to tickle the palates Of some French
epicures, l 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 they
serve as very handy clocks. It's this way
The eyeball Of a cat contracts constantly
from dawn until noon, at which hour it is
merely a thin horizontal line. From noon
the eyeball gradually dilates until it reaches
full expansion at shutdown. So that in
places wnere there are no clocks or dial
or where there are dials ard the day il
cloudy a Chinaman just picks up a cat anc
learns the hour by locking at its eyes"
Il had no idea that you had made a
special study Of cat lore, but there's nc
use talking, you Vsssar graduates known
everything under the III"
"Cats nave still another virtue. Rheu
matism can be cured by rubbing the af
fected part with a einger-colored pussy"
"You are a veritable encyclopaedia, dear
THAT is nothing. l nave lots Of talent
you haven't yet discovered. However, tina
will do for the present, and it now behooyei
you-the duet having terminated-to 81
right down and indite an ode to the Cat 0
Cats"
'StropSes to a cat-catastrophes. | can
do II; but / will dash off rhapsodic stan
zas ad libitum TO the most adorable littl
champion who ever defended the cause 0
cats."-N. Y. Times.
A Toast In Taste.
ga man ret,allv ,raGaa a foaI of htro~af