Part 14 (2/2)

”'Pretty willing? Look after you well, and all that sort of thing?'

”'Yes--oh yes. I've no fault to find with them.'

”'What's the victuals like?'

”'Oh, the usual thing, you know, bones and sc.r.a.ps, and a bit of dog-biscuit now and then for a change.'

”'Bones and dog-biscuits! Do you mean to say you eat bones?'

”'Yes, when I can get 'em. Why, what's wrong about them?'

”'Shade of Egyptian Isis, bones and dog-biscuits! Don't you ever get any spring chickens, or a sardine, or a lamb cutlet?'

”'Chickens! Sardines! What are you talking about? What are sardines?'

”'What are sardines! Oh, my dear child (the Chinchilla was a lady cat, and always called gentlemen friends a little older than herself 'dear child'), these people of yours are treating you just shamefully. Come, sit down and tell me all about it. What do they give you to sleep on?'

”'The floor.'

”'I thought so; and skim milk and water to drink, I suppose?'

”'It _is_ a bit thin.'

”'I can quite imagine it. You must leave these people, my dear, at once.'

”'But where am I to go to?'

”'Anywhere.'

”'But who'll take me in?'

”'Anybody, if you go the right way to work. How many times do you think I've changed my people? Seven!--and bettered myself on each occasion.

Why, do you know where I was born? In a pig-sty. There were three of us, mother and I and my little brother. Mother would leave us every evening, returning generally just as it was getting light. One morning she did not come back. We waited and waited, but the day pa.s.sed on and she did not return, and we grew hungrier and hungrier, and at last we lay down, side by side, and cried ourselves to sleep.

”'In the evening, peeping through a hole in the door, we saw her coming across the field. She was crawling very slowly, with her body close down against the ground. We called to her, and she answered with a low ”crroo”; but she did not hasten her pace.

”'She crept in and rolled over on her side, and we ran to her, for we were almost starving. We lay long upon her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and she licked us over and over.

”'I dropped asleep upon her, and in the night I awoke, feeling cold. I crept closer to her, but that only made me colder still, and she was wet and clammy with a dark moisture that was oozing from her side. I did not know what it was at that time, but I have learnt since.

”'That was when I could hardly have been four weeks old, and from that day to this I've looked after myself: you've got to do that in this world, my dear. For a while, I and my brother lived on in that sty and kept ourselves. It was a grim struggle at first, two babies fighting for life; but we pulled through. At the end of about three months, wandering farther from home than usual, I came upon a cottage, standing in the fields. It looked warm and cosy through the open door, and I went in: I have always been blessed with plenty of nerve. Some children were playing round the fire, and they welcomed me and made much of me. It was a new sensation to me, and I stayed there. I thought the place a palace at the time.

”'I might have gone on thinking so if it had not been that, pa.s.sing through the village one day, I happened to catch sight of a room behind a shop. There was a carpet on the floor, and a rug before the fire. I had never known till then that there were such luxuries in the world. I determined to make that shop my home, and I did so.'

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