nst a Cat licks her futs, shure she's at
home." So she deftly caught the unapproachable royalty in her apron,
and committed the horrible sacrilege of greasing the soles of her feet
with pot-grease. Of course Kitty resented it--she resented everything
in the place; but on being set down she began to dress her paws and
found evident satisfaction in that grease. She licked all four feet for
an hour, and the cook triumphantly announced that now "shure she'd be
apt to shtay." And stay she did, but she showed a most surprising and
disgusting preference for the kitchen, the cook, and the garbage-pail.

The family, though distressed by these distinguished peculiarities,
were glad to see the Royal Analostan more contented and approachable.
They gave her more liberty after a week or two. They guarded her from
every menace. The Dogs were taught to respect her. No man or boy about
the place would have dreamed of throwing a stone at the famous
pedigreed Cat. She had all the food she wanted, but still she was not
happy. She was hankering for many things, she scarcely knew what. She
had everything--yes, but she wanted something else. Plenty to eat and
drink--yes, but milk does not taste the same when you can go and drink
all you want from a saucer; it has to be stolen out of a tin pail when
you are belly-pinched with hunger and thirst, or it does not have the
tang--it isn't milk.

Yes, there was a junk-yard back of the house and beside it and around
it too, a big one, but it was everywhere poisoned and polluted with
roses. The very Horses and Dogs had the wrong smells; the whole country
round was a repellent desert of lifeless, disgusting gardens and
hay-fields, without a single tenement or smoke-stack in sight. How she
did hate it all! There was only one sweet-smelling shrub in the whole
horrible place, and that was in a neglected corner. She did enjoy
nipping that and rolling in the leaves; it was a bright spot in the
grounds; but the only one, for she had not found a rotten fish-head nor
seen a genuine garbage-can since she came, and altogether it was the
most unlovely, unattractive, unsmellable spot she had ever known. She
would surely have gone that first night had she had the liberty. The
liberty was weeks in coming, and, meanwhile, her affinity with the cook
had developed as a bond to keep her; but one day after a summer of
discontent a succession of things happened to stir anew the slum
instinct of the royal prisoner.

A gr