THE CAT IN THE HALL.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXII, Issue 25, 29 July 1911, Page 10

THE CAT IN THE HALL.

The light from the window square falls in. two golden patches on the floor. I lie here all the morning, aoid I can tell you the sun. is a pleasant tiling in a Queensland June.. With yellow eyes, half-closed, black body deliciously limp, people as they pass up and down the elate stairway say, "My word, he'e found the best place this morning," and marvel at th© commoneense of cats. Cats! Were they (not old in wisdom when the world was young? Papyrus that dates back many a thousand years tells of tho days when the cat was a king in Egypt, Meeuw 1 1 have a, tolerance for these. Humans, that k all. I am too old in tho wisdom of ages to love them. For human, nature is a poor thing. Be ifc Pharaoh's or a charwoman's, And so much-*so much—the same. . . But there is one thing that endures, and is a. fine thing. . . i see something of it on these chilly mornings, when. I doze in my sun' patch, or on grey days when I can find no sun. aad wander disconsolate, looking for a piece of newspaper to camp in. . . A literary lady who rents an office down the passage gives the caretaker odd copies of journals sometimes. They make An excellent bed for me on sunless days. With the park dossem, I ha.ye found paper keep* in heat bettter than anything else as a substitute for blankets. I have always had an admiration for the caretaker.. I admire, while I would not for the world strive to imitate, her unwearing energy. She is up at four a.m., rain or shine, scrubbing, dusting, sweeping, the endlees round which comprises fiome women's lives. Of course, she is a, email woman. Likewise, she has been very pretty, and has buried two husbands, and reared an enormous family. They are all away now. Married or dead, which ie the eanie thing in many cases. Only that Death means Peace. The youngest boy is the only one left now, and he is Benjamin. He ia always getting new jobs, and has a wonderful taste in neckties. She prides herself that "Tommy is that aristocratic." So ho is. He likes to epend other folk's money, and have them work for him. He is a true aristocrat. . . Homehow he never keeps his job. He fieems unfortunate in his choice of masters. They are short-tempered and unreasonable. So he cornea home again, and helps her to dust when he isn't doing the block, and gets pocket-money. Of course, he is good looking, with a dolly-like prettiness. He resembles her second husband, who was much younger than ehe. He brings little bunches of flowers homa to his mother. I see the tears in her eyes often when she watches him swaggering" down the wide staircase. People are awfully unfair to Tommy, she thinks, leaning on her broom, and if he is a bit wild— well—so Was his father before him. The lad has so much spirit. It's the most extraordinary thing in the world how good Women, lie to themselves where their affections are concerned, and to others, too. A woman, who is, in most •things, the soul of honour, would not touch a penny 6he was not i entitled to to save herself from starvation., will eail amazingly near to the wind for the sake of some good-far • nothing child of her body. It was the same in the days of the '< Ptolemies as it is now—and that is the scrap tof the Divine— twist it how one will— =in a woman, He is always her baby. That is something, a man**no.ble creature— can never feel. From the clear-eyed, absolutely impersonal standpoint of the cat in the hall, I know Tommy to be a waster, a depraved youngsteTj who deserves it—if he doesn't achieve it — to end on the gallows- I talce a trot round .the city by night sometimes, and it is always where he shouldn't be, that I find Tommy ; and she, wearing her eyes out beside a kerosene ( lamp at the time of the gas strike, sighs, "It's a shame they ke«p him so late at work," as she darns the heels of the piice socks striped with green. Tommy's last employer came up the stairs to see her a week ago. He chock his head. There was a shortage in the till, and he did not want to prosecute. She was as white as her apron when it is clean at the beginning of the week, but she laughed as any high-born lady might have done. It was perfectly ridiculous to even euspect Tommy, But after the man had grumbled away downstairs, more than half convinced that it certainly could not be Tommy, and he must look elsewhere for the culorit, ehe sank shaking into the little wooden rocker (I wae under the stove) and remembered, doubtless, that Tommy had bought her a. new bonnet last week, and shouted gallery tickets to the theatre. But no, of course, he must have been saving; there could be no other explanation, and up she got and dust-ed all the places she had already dusted, and slashed tho broom round till I feared for my dignity, and slopped water about the passage, "the way women do when they have something to work off their minds. Mceuw— tftey are wonders, these women— and some people say man are the born rulers of the earth. Wait another half century. Women aro waking up. Watch them ! Tommy came home drunk last night, and hit 'his mother. It is against my principles to interfere, or I should have scratched those puce socks of hin into holes. She got him to bed, aald put her own quilt over him, for fear he should wake cold. A policeman came to ask questions this morning. But Tommy haa been home early. (So he had^ but it depends what end of the night you judge from). He is a good^son, and kept his mother company most nights. All the time she was hiding behind her back while she talked a hand with a bruised wrist. "Now, Mr, Maloney, can't you spare a minute for a cup of tea? 'Twill be ready in half a jift." O ! She is an F -re, this mother of Tommy's. It must be a partfcrfattv hon id story. The women whisper, looking at her curtained doorway as they pass. The men, the nicer ones,' prefix a bad word to Tommy's home, hurrying clown the passage aa though afraid of meeting her on the stairs, and if they do apeak very loud and cheerfully, and bolt into their offices as though important clients were waiting. The nasty ones pniyger furtively. Yes. it must be a very horrid , story. It does not filter through to me, who hold myself above gocsip, though that nmngcy' pariah cat, who exists disreputably on North-quay, tried to tell me something last night, I closed my ears with a paw and looked at the i atare. He said something about my i following the popular craze of | "Australia for the Australians 1 ' and "squatting like a kangaroo/ and went yowling down a backyard. I am sorry for her. and as for Tommywell—it. means death or a lifer, and to see the spirit of her, going; off to the best lawyer and drawing every rent she han saved for Jit declining years out of the bsmk. "There's the old-age pension for me, thank God." she cays to ,i sympathetic friend, though Heaven knows she hates the idea, of anything slie feels savours of charity ac much as she would hate a hobble pkirt. Whatever happens il isn't Tommy's fault. The woman with a lot, of forehead and a little hat came U> ilWounse. She is t4ie sent of person v hiXsP ' unvernation on* wtniiHn't, e*ll "W,king.'' £<h$ i>'«t

wad wiping down the btuiftifitera. "Those whom the 'Lord Loveth He chasteneth' ; we feel for yon, dear sister. You have the prayers of the congregation in y&ttr hour of trial." "Oh, don't worry about me," said the caretaker, brandishing her cloth ; "it ain't Tommy's fault; he's sure to bo cleared." Then "Bless the dust; it's always in my eyes," she said, and rubbed and rubbed till you could see yourself in the bannister. "Tommy ain't never had no luck," she added, turning her back. "There's them «« is jealotis of my Tom." She was talking quickly, with gasps for breath between. "It will be a.ll right; my counsel"— -she* swelled with natural pride— "my cotineol sea so," and "Good morning to you, Mm. Smithere; it's my real busy day." I d imbed on to her bed in the dark that night Ie- keep her feet warm. She was rocking her a-rms against her breast as though they held a eoft and helpless boay.. "My little boy," ehe said, "My, laddie boy." Ah, -these women,. And if Tommy, with his usual "bad luck," ie the victim of a conspiracy, a« ehe is beginning to think, and isn't cleared— well— -if they ha.ttg ( him ehe'll burn candles before his picture and make a martyred saint of him, and if they give him twenty years, why enVll sit here, or somewhere, just waiting to be the one to greet and kiss him when he comes out. Thus are mothers—now, as in Pharaoh's day.— M. Forrest, in Atwtrala* sian. »