melia will
soon be wanting to know what's happening to the home; and she'll make a
fuss if there aren't any cats in it. So we must have cats."

"Well, I tell you what it is: we must take cats. There are cats all
over the country; and when we're out bicycling, a good way from home,
we could easily pick up one or two at a time and bring them back with
us. We ought to be able to get four a day, counting kittens; and in
eight days the home would be full and two over."

"And we should be prosecuted for stealing them," said the Terror coldly.

"But they'd be ever so much better off in the home, properly looked
after and fed," protested Erebus.

"That wouldn't make any difference. No; it's no good trying to get
them that way," said the Terror in a tone of finality.

"Well, they won't come of themselves," said Erebus.

"They would with valerian," said Wiggins.

"Who's Valerian?" said Erebus.

"It isn't a who. It's a drug at the chemist's," said Wiggins. "I've
been talking to my father about cats a good deal lately, and he says if
you put valerian on a rag and drag it along the ground, cats will
follow it for miles."

"Your father seems to know everything--such a lot of useful things as
well as higher mathematics," said the Terror.

"That's why he has a European reputation," said Wiggins; and he spurned
the earth.

That afternoon the Twins bicycled into Rowington and bought a bottle of
the enchanting drug. Just before they reached the village, on their
way home, the Terror produced a rag with a piece of string tied to it,
poured some valerian on it and trailed it after his bicycle through the
village to his garden gate.

The result demonstrated the accuracy of the scientific knowledge of the
father of Wiggins. All that evening and far into the night twelve cats
fought clamorously round the house of the Dangerfields.

The next day the Terror turned the cats' home into a cat-trap. He cut
a hole in the bottom of its door large enough to admit a cat and fitted
it with a hanging flap which a cat would readily push open from the
outside, but lacked the intelligence to raise from the inside. He was
late finishing it, and went from it to his dinner.

They had just come to the end of the simple meal when they heard a ring
at the back door; and old Sarah came in to say that Polly Cotteril had
come from the village with some kittens. The Twins excused themselves
politely to their mother, and hurried to the kitch