ack. No sooner did the Emperor of China stroke the
buck cat than back he fell on his plush throne, as dead as his
ancestors. So they called in seven wise doctors from the seven wise
countries of the East to find out what it was killed the Emperor. And
after seven years they discovered electricity in the backbone of the
cat, and signed a proclamation that it was from the shock of it the
Emperor had died. When the Americans read the proclamation they decided
to do whatever killing had to be done as the cat had killed the Emperor
of China. The Americans are like that--all for imitating royal
families."

"Has this cat any electricity in her?" Padna asked.

"She has," said the shoemaker, drawing his wax-end. "But she's a
civilised cat, not like the vulgar fellow in China, and civilised cats
hide their electricity much as civilised people hide their feelings. But
one day last summer I saw her showing her electricity. A monstrous black
rat came prowling from the brewery, a bald patch on his head and a piece
missing from his left haunch. To see that fellow coming up out of a
gullet and stepping up the street, in the middle of the broad daylight,
you'd imagine he was the county inspector of police."

"And did she fight the rat?" Padna asked.

The shoemaker put the shoe on a last and began to tap with his hammer.
"She did fight him," he said. "She went out to him twirling her
moustaches. He lay down on his back. She lay down on her side. They kept
grinning and sparring at each other like that for half an hour. At last
the monstrous rat got up in a fury and come at her, the fangs stripped.
She swung round the yard, doubled in two, making circles like a
Catherine-wheel about him until the old blackguard was mesmerised. And
if you were to see the bulk of her tail then, all her electricity gone
into it! She caught him with a blow of it under the jowl, and he fell in
a swoon. She stood over him, her back like the bend of a hoop, the tail
beating about her, and a smile on the side of her face. And that was the
end of the monstrous brewery rat."

Padna said nothing, but put the cat down on the floor. When she made
some effort to regain his lap he surreptitiously suggested, with the tip
of his boot, that their entente was at an end.

A few drops of rain beat on the window, and the shoemaker looked up, his
glasses shining, the bumps on his forehead gleaming. "Do you know the
reason God makes it rain?" he asked.

Padna, who had bee