e. It passed right through it and fell with a
soft squash on the ground. Gallaher picked it up with an oath. "I will
tell you the history of that cat," he went on, as he resumed his seat,
"and a d----d queer history it is."

Pouring himself out a bumper of whisky and refilling his pipe, he
cleared his throat and began: "As a boy I always hated cats--God knows
why--but the sight of a cat made me sick. I could not stand their soft,
sleek fur; nor their silly, senseless faces; nor their smell--the smell
of their skins, which most people don't seem able to detect. I could,
however; I could recognise that d----d scent a mile off, and could
always tell, without seeing it, when there was a cat in the house. If
any of the boys at school wanted to play me a trick they let loose half
a dozen mangy tabbies in our yard, or sent me a hideous 'Tom' trussed up
like a fowl in a hamper, or made cats' noises in the dead of night under
my window. Everyone in the village, from the baker to the bone-setter,
knew of my hatred of cats, and, consequently, I had many
enemies--chiefly amongst the old ladies. I must tell you, however, much
as I loathed and abominated cats, I never killed one. I threw stones and
sticks at them; I emptied jugs, and cans, and many pails of water on
them; I pelted them with turnips; I hurled cushions, bolsters, pillows,
anything I could first lay my hands on, at them; and"--here he cast a
furtive look at the shadow--"I have pinched and trodden on their tails;
but I have never killed one. When I grew up, my attitude towards them
remained the same, and wherever I went I won the reputation for being
the inveterate, the most poignantly inveterate, enemy of cats.

"When I was about twenty-five, I settled in a part of Texas where there
were no cats. It was on a ranch in the upper valley of the Colorado. I
was cattle ranching, and having had a pretty shrewd knowledge of the
business before I left home, I soon made headway, and--between
ourselves, mate, for there are mighty 'tough uns' in these town
hotels--a good pile of dollars. I never had any of the adventures that
befall most men out West, never but once, and I am coming to that right
away.

"I had been selling some hundred head of cattle and about the same
number of hogs, at a town some twenty or so miles from my ranch, and
feeling I would like a bit of excitement, after so many months of
monotony--the monotony of the desert life--I turned into the theatre--a
wooden