barked and
jumped about, so I went to see what was the matter.

It was Tittums. She was sitting on the top stair but one and wouldn't
let him pass.

Tittums is our kitten. She is about the size of a penny roll. Her back
was up and she was swearing like a medical student.

She does swear fearfully. I do a little that way myself sometimes, but
I am a mere amateur compared with her. To tell you the truth--mind, this
is strictly between ourselves, please; I shouldn't like your wife
to know I said it--the women folk don't understand these things; but
between you and me, you know, I think it does a man good to swear.
Swearing is the safety-valve through which the bad temper that might
otherwise do serious internal injury to his mental mechanism escapes in
harmless vaporing. When a man has said: "Bless you, my dear, sweet
sir. What the sun, moon, and stars made you so careless (if I may be
permitted the expression) as to allow your light and delicate foot to
descend upon my corn with so much force? Is it that you are physically
incapable of comprehending the direction in which you are proceeding?
you nice, clever young man--you!" or words to that effect, he feels
better. Swearing has the same soothing effect upon our angry passions
that smashing the furniture or slamming the doors is so well known to
exercise; added to which it is much cheaper. Swearing clears a man out
like a pen'orth of gunpowder does the wash-house chimney. An occasional
explosion is good for both. I rather distrust a man who never swears,
or savagely kicks the foot-stool, or pokes the fire with unnecessary
violence. Without some outlet, the anger caused by the ever-occurring
troubles of life is apt to rankle and fester within. The petty
annoyance, instead of being thrown from us, sits down beside us and
becomes a sorrow, and the little offense is brooded over till, in
the hot-bed of rumination, it grows into a great injury, under whose
poisonous shadow springs up hatred and revenge.

Swearing relieves the feelings--that is what swearing does. I explained
this to my aunt on one occasion, but it didn't answer with her. She said
I had no business to have such feelings.

That is what I told Tittums. I told her she ought to be ashamed of
herself, brought up in at Christian family as she was, too. I don't
so much mind hearing an old cat swear, but I can't bear to see a mere
kitten give way to it. It seems sad in one so young.

I put Tittums in my pocket