-"susceptibility of 'discipline' would be the chief
test of animal character, which means that the best dogs get their
character from men. If so--"

"You pity the poor brutes?"

"Oh no. I was going to say that on that principle cats should have next
to no character at all."

"They have plenty," I said, "but it's usually bad--at least hopelessly
unromantic. Who ever heard of a heroic or self-denying cat? Cats do what
they like, not what you want them to do."

He laughed. "Sometimes they do what you like very much. You haven't
heard Mrs. Warburton-Kinneir's cat-story?"

"The Warburton-Kinneirs! I didn't know they were back in England."

"Oh yes. They've been six months in Hampshire, and now they are in town.
She has Thursday afternoons."

"Good," I said, "I'll go the very next Friday, and take my chance...."

Fortunately only one visitor appeared to tea. And as soon as I had
explained my curiosity, he joined me in petitioning for the story which
follows:--

* * * * *

Stoffles was her name, a familiar abbreviation, and Mephistophelian was
her nature. She had all the usual vices of the feline tribe, including
a double portion of those which men are so fond of describing as
feminine. Vain, indolent, selfish, with a highly cultivated taste for
luxury and neatness in her personal appearance, she was distinguished by
all those little irritating habits and traits for which nothing but an
affectionate heart (a thing in her case conspicuous by its absence) can
atone.

It would be incorrect, perhaps, to say that Stoffles did not care for
the society of my husband and myself. She liked the best of everything,
and these our circumstances allowed us to give her. For the rest, though
in kitten days suspected of having caught a mouse, she had never been
known in after life to do anything which the most lax of economists
could describe as useful. She would lie all day in the best arm-chair
enjoying real or pretended slumbers, which never affected her appetite
at supper-time; although in that eventide which is the feline morn she
would, if certain of a sufficient number of admiring spectators,
condescend to amuse their dull human intelligence by exhibitions of her
dexterity. But she was soon bored, and had no conception of altruistic
effort. Abundantly cautious and prudent in all matters concerning her
own safety and comfort, she had that feline celerity of vanishing like
air or water before t