fear and awe of the
two women increased. When his sister-in-law turned upon him he fairly
cringed.

"Cats!" said Amanda. Then she sniffed. The sniff was worse than speech.

Joe repeated in a mumble that he didn't want any cats, and went out,
closing the door softly after him, as he had been taught. However, he
was entirely sure, in the depths of his subjugated masculine mind, that
his wife and her sister had no legal authority whatever to interfere
with their uncle's right to keep a hundred coal fires in his woodshed,
for a thousand cats. He always had an inner sense of glee when he heard
the two women talk over the matter. Once Amanda had declared that she
did not believe that Tom Hopkinson knew much about law, anyway.

"He seems to stand pretty high," Joe ventured with the utmost mildness.

"Yes, he does," admitted Alma, grudgingly.

"It does not follow he knows law," persisted Amanda, "and it MAY follow
that he likes cats. There was that great Maltese tommy brushing round
all the time we were in his office, but I didn't dare shoo him off for
fear it might be against the law." Amanda laughed, a very disagreeable
little laugh. Joe said nothing, but inwardly he chuckled. It was
the cause of man with man. He realized a great, even affectionate,
understanding of Jim.

The day after his nieces had visited the lawyer's office, Jim was
preparing to call on his friend Edward Hayward, the minister. Before
leaving he looked carefully after the fire in the woodshed. The
stove was large. Jim piled on the coal, regardless outwardly that the
housekeeper, Susan Adkins, had slammed the kitchen door to indicate her
contempt. Inwardly Jim felt hurt, but he had felt hurt so long from the
same cause that the sensation had become chronic, and was borne with a
gentle patience. Moreover, there was something which troubled him more
and was the reason for his contemplated call on his friend. He evened
the coals on the fire with great care, and replenished from the pail in
the icebox the cats' saucers. There was a circle of clean white saucers
around the stove. Jim owned many cats; counting the kittens, there were
probably over twenty. Mrs. Adkins counted them in the sixties. "Those
sixty-seven cats," she said.

Jim often gave away cats when he was confident of securing good homes,
but supply exceeded the demand. Now and then tragedies took place
in that woodshed. Susan Adkins came bravely to the front upon these
occasions. Quite convi