ming
misfortune. The train, when it did arrive, was tolerably empty, and I
secured a vacant first-class. For a time all went happily; then the cat
commenced groaning.

[Illustration: SEATED MYSELF ON THE HAMPER.]

My aunt having solemnly ordered me to give the brute dinner, I now
prepared to stop his mouth with cold chicken. While I was cautiously
unfastening the hamper lid, Beauty remained quiet as a dormouse; and
then he proceeded personally to assist the unfastening, with a
vengeance. There was a bouncing volcanic eruption, a blood-curdling
howl, a mixed-up whirling round the carriage, and then--smash!--bang
through the window went Beauty!--leaving me doubled up on the seat,
holding out half a chicken. It was a forty-feline-power hurricane, while
it lasted; and drops of perspiration trickled down my nose on to the
chicken, at which I sat stupidly staring. After a dazed pause I
staggered to the broken window and looked out. There was Beauty, with a
perpendicular tail like a young fir-tree, going like great guns in
exactly the wrong direction. We had just come through a long tunnel, and
the last I saw of my aunt's pet demon was as he dived headlong into its
Hades-like mouth. And I had to take home first prize for him from the
Grand All-England Cat Show!

[Illustration: LEAVING THE RAILWAY CARRIAGE.]

[Illustration: INTO ITS HADES-LIKE MOUTH.]

[Illustration: INCIPIENT CATALEPSY.]

When the 4.40 down express arrived at Muddiford-on-the-Ooze station, an
auburn-haired youth limply emerged from a first-class carriage. In his
arms he bore a basket, and his grey-green eyes gleamed with incipient
catalepsy. Yes, such would undoubtedly have been my description had I
posed as the momentary hero of a penny novelette. I forgot all about my
luggage, imbecilely clinging to the late habitation of the lost beast
Beauty, wandering I knew not why nor whither. Outside the station, round
a quiet corner, my steps were arrested by the surprising sight
of--Beauty!--the very identical devil himself! There stood the
unhangable, undrownable, hurricane-creating beast, looking as serene as
a newly-born black cherub, washing his fiendish face! I approached on
tiptoe, breathlessly, with the basket behind my back and the half
chicken extended as a peaceable card of introduction. He scented it
instantly--my aunt always keeping Beauty's tit-bits until sufficiently
gamey to suit his highly epicurean taste.

[Illustration: WASHING HIS FIENDISH