Part 9 (1/2)

”You're always bothering about those silly old accounts!” said Erebus sharply.

She resented having had to enter in their penny ledger the items of their expenditure with conspicuous neatness under his critical eye.

”Well, I don't think the kittens ought to go down in the accounts.

Aunt Amelia is so used to cats' homes that are given their cats. She's told me all about it: how people write and ask for their cats to be taken in.”

”_I_ don't want them to go down. It makes all the less accounts to keep,” said Erebus readily.

”Well, that's settled,” said the Terror cheerfully.

Once more the Twins rode round the countryside, spreading abroad the tidings of their munificent offer of threepence a head for kittens who could just lap.

But kittens did not immediately flow in; and the complaints of the impatient Erebus grew louder and louder. There was no doubt that she loved a grievance; and even more she loved making no secret of that grievance to those about her. Since she could only discuss this grievance with the Terror and Wiggins, they heard enough about it.

Indeed, her complaints were at last no small factor in her patient brother's resolve to take action; and he called her and Wiggins to a council.

He opened the discussion by saying: ”We've got to have kittens, or cats. We can't have any pocket-money for 'overseering' till there's something to overseer.”

”And that splendid cats' home we've made stopping empty all the time,”

said Erebus in her most bitterly aggrieved tone.

”I don't mind that. I'm sick of hearing about it,” said the Terror coldly. ”But I do want pocket-money; and besides, Aunt Amelia will soon be wanting to know what's happening to the home; and she'll make a fuss if there aren't any cats in it. So we must have cats.”

”Well, I tell you what it is: we must take cats. There are cats all over the country; and when we're out bicycling, a good way from home, we could easily pick up one or two at a time and bring them back with us. We ought to be able to get four a day, counting kittens; and in eight days the home would be full and two over.”

”And we should be prosecuted for stealing them,” said the Terror coldly.

”But they'd be ever so much better off in the home, properly looked after and fed,” protested Erebus.

”That wouldn't make any difference. No; it's no good trying to get them that way,” said the Terror in a tone of finality.

”Well, they won't come of themselves,” said Erebus.

”They would with valerian,” said Wiggins.

”Who's Valerian?” said Erebus.

”It isn't a who. It's a drug at the chemist's,” said Wiggins. ”I've been talking to my father about cats a good deal lately, and he says if you put valerian on a rag and drag it along the ground, cats will follow it for miles.”

”Your father seems to know everything--such a lot of useful things as well as higher mathematics,” said the Terror.

”That's why he has a European reputation,” said Wiggins; and he spurned the earth.

That afternoon the Twins bicycled into Rowington and bought a bottle of the enchanting drug. Just before they reached the village, on their way home, the Terror produced a rag with a piece of string tied to it, poured some valerian on it and trailed it after his bicycle through the village to his garden gate.

The result demonstrated the accuracy of the scientific knowledge of the father of Wiggins. All that evening and far into the night twelve cats fought clamorously round the house of the Dangerfields.

The next day the Terror turned the cats' home into a cat-trap. He cut a hole in the bottom of its door large enough to admit a cat and fitted it with a hanging flap which a cat would readily push open from the outside, but lacked the intelligence to raise from the inside. He was late finis.h.i.+ng it, and went from it to his dinner.

They had just come to the end of the simple meal when they heard a ring at the back door; and old Sarah came in to say that Polly Cotteril had come from the village with some kittens. The Twins excused themselves politely to their mother, and hurried to the kitchen to find that Polly had brought no less than five small kittens in a basket.