ther said, 'Down, puss,' and gently tilted the chair so that
Maurice fell off it. Then the family had herrings. Maurice said, 'You
might give me some,' and he said it so often that his father, who, of
course, heard only mewings, said:--

'For goodness' sake put that cat out of the room.'

Maurice breakfasted later, in the dust-bin, on herring heads.

But he kept himself up with a new and splendid idea. They would give him
milk presently, and then they should see.

He spent the afternoon sitting on the sofa in the dining-room, listening
to the conversation of his father and mother. It is said that listeners
never hear any good of themselves. Maurice heard so much that he was
surprised and humbled. He heard his father say that he was a fine,
plucky little chap, but he needed a severe lesson, and Dr. Strongitharm
was the man to give it to him. He heard his mother say things that made
his heart throb in his throat and the tears prick behind those green
cat-eyes of his. He had always thought his parents a little bit unjust.
Now they did him so much more than justice that he felt quite small and
mean inside his cat-skin.

[Illustration: He landed there on his four padded feet light as a
feather.]

'He's a dear, good, affectionate boy,' said mother. 'It's only his high
spirits. Don't you think, darling, perhaps you were a little hard on
him?'

'It was for his own good,' said father.

'Of course,' said mother; 'but I can't bear to think of him at that
dreadful school.'

'Well----,' father was beginning, when Jane came in with the tea-things
on a clattering tray, whose sound made Maurice tremble in every leg.
Father and mother began to talk about the weather.

Maurice felt very affectionately to both his parents. The natural way of
showing this was to jump on to the sideboard and thence on to his
father's shoulders. He landed there on his four padded feet, light as a
feather, but father was not pleased.

'Bother the cat!' he cried. 'Jane, put it out of the room.'

Maurice was put out. His great idea, which was to be carried out with
milk, would certainly not be carried out in the dining-room. He sought
the kitchen, and, seeing a milk-can on the window-ledge, jumped up
beside the can and patted it as he had seen Lord Hugh do.

'My!' said a friend of Jane's who happened to be there, 'ain't that cat
clever--a perfect moral, I call her.'

'He's nothing to boast of this time,' said cook. 'I will say for Lord
Hugh he