A WORD FOR THE CAT

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1695, 24 August 1904, Page 12

A WORD FOR THE CAT

How many people, I wonder (writes Mr J. C. Runciman in the “’Saturday Review’'’), understand the cat half so well as he understands them P He is the least understood of all quadrupeds—l suppose he is a quadruped because, like the little schoolgirFs definition of a horse, he has fonr legs, one at each corner. Honoured beyond his merits in old Egypt, he has paid, since in being hunted by dogs and street ruffians with stones. But all the time he has guarded his dignity, if not altogether his equanimity. He cannot forget (if my natural history is correct) that he is a scion of the lion tribe, and does not belong, like the dog, to the wolf tribe. He behaves himself always as one who is of all he surveys. Like many other monarchs, he often has had to run for his life; and if a tree is not handy, as it was for the “young man” afterwards known as Charles 11. of England. he takes a back alley or shelters himself behind area railings. But find a monarch running for his life, and take him quickly in your arms. If he happens to like you ho will sit there purring, contemptuous of all the dogs in creation; but if he does not like you he will scratch your face and bolt, trusting one of his nine lives again to his four short legs.