ind letting me have my cat, please?' she said pleasantly.
'He has gone into your sitting-room through the window.'

He looked faintly surprised.

'Your cat?'

'My black cat, Joseph. He is in your sitting-room.'

'I'm afraid you have come to the wrong place. I've just left my
sitting-room, and the only cat there is my black cat, Reginald.'

'But I saw Joseph go in only a minute ago.'

'That was Reginald.'

For the first time, as one who examining a fair shrub abruptly
discovers that it is a stinging-nettle, Elizabeth realized the truth.
This was no innocent young man who stood before her, but the blackest
criminal known to criminologists--a stealer of other people's cats. Her
manner shot down to zero.

'May I ask how long you have had your Reginald?'

'Since four o'clock this afternoon.'

'Did he come in through the window?'

'Why, yes. Now you mention it, he did.'

'I must ask you to be good enough to give me back my cat,' said
Elizabeth, icily.

He regarded her defensively.

'Assuming,' he said, 'purely for the purposes of academic argument,
that your Joseph is my Reginald, couldn't we come to an agreement of
some sort? Let me buy you another cat. A dozen cats.'

'I don't want a dozen cats. I want Joseph.'

'Fine, fat, soft cats,' he went on persuasively. 'Lovely, affectionate
Persians and Angoras, and--'

'Of course, if you intend to steal Joseph--'

'These are harsh words. Any lawyer will tell you that there are special
statutes regarding cats. To retain a stray cat is not a tort or a
misdemeanour. In the celebrated test-case of Wiggins _v_. Bluebody
it was established--'

'Will you please give me back my cat?'

She stood facing him, her chin in the air and her eyes shining, and the
young man suddenly fell a victim to conscience.

'Look here,' he said, 'I'll throw myself on your mercy. I admit the cat
is your cat, and that I have no right to it, and that I am just a
common sneak-thief. But consider. I had just come back from the first
rehearsal of my first play; and as I walked in at the door that cat
walked in at the window. I'm as superstitious as a coon, and I felt
that to give him up would be equivalent to killing the play before ever
it was produced. I know it will sound absurd to you. _You_ have no
idiotic superstitions. You are sane and practical. But, in the
circumstances, if you _could_ see your way to waiving your
rights--'

Before the wistfulness of his eye Elizabeth capitulat