nish a tread you would be
depicted treading the lawn, sparing neither age nor sex, seizing the
infant worm as it puts out its head to take its first bewildered peep
at the rolling sun! Cats could write sonnets on such a theme.... Then
there is that other beautiful potential poem, _The Cry of the
Snail_.... How tender-hearted cats are! Their sympathy seems to be all
but universal, always on the look out for an object, ready to extend
itself anywhere where it is needed, except, as is but human, to their
victims. Yellow eyes or not, I begin to be persuaded that the cat next
door is a noble fellow. It may well be that his look as I pass is a
look not of fear but of repulsion. He has seen me going out among the
worms with a sharp--no, not a very sharp--spade, and regards me as no
better than an ogre. If I could only explain to him! But I shall never
be able to do so. He could no more appreciate my point of view about
worms than I can appreciate his about robins. Luckily, we both eat
chicken. This may ultimately help us to understand one another.

On the other hand, part of the fascination of cats may be due to the
fact that it is so difficult to come to an understanding with them. A
man talks to a horse or a dog as to an equal. To a cat he has to be
deferential as though it had some Sphinx-like quality that baffled
him. He cannot order a cat about with the certainty of being obeyed.
He cannot be sure that, if he speaks to it, it will even raise its
eyes. If it is perfectly comfortable, it will not. A cat is obedient
only when it is hungry or when it takes the fancy. It may be a
parasite, but it is never a servant. The dog does your bidding, but
you do the cat's. At the same time, the contrast between the cat and
the dog has often been exaggerated by dog-lovers. They tell you
stories of dogs that remained with their dead masters, as though there
were no fidelity in cats. It was only the other day, however, that the
newspapers gave an account of a cat that remained with the body of its
murdered mistress in the most faithful tradition of the dogs. I know,
again, of cats that will go out for a walk with a human
fellow-creature, as dogs do. I have frequently seen a lady walking
across Hampstead Heath with a cat in train. When you go for a walk
with a dog, however, the dog protects you: when you go for a walk with
a cat, you feel that you are protecting the cat. It is strange that
the cat should have imposed the myth of its helple