these interesting tricks, with various others that may be passed
over, he would perform with a lively zest whenever set at them by a mere
word of prompting; but his most notable trick was a game in which he
engaged with his mistress not at word of command, but--such was his
intelligence--simply upon her setting the signal for it. The signal was
a close-fitting white cap--to be quite frank, a night-cap--that she
tied upon her head when it was desired that the game should be played.

It was of the game that Madame Jolicoeur should assume her cap with an
air of detachment and aloofness: as though no such entity as the Shah de
Perse existed, and with an insisted-upon disregard of the fact that he
was watching her alertly with his great golden eyes. Equally was it of
the game that the Shah de Perse should affect--save for his alert
watching--a like disregard of the doings of Madame Jolicoeur: usually
by an ostentatious pretence of washing his upraised hind leg, or by a
like pretence of scrubbing his ears. These conventions duly having been
observed, Madame Jolicoeur would seat herself in her especial
easy-chair, above the relatively high back of which her night-capped
head a little rose. Being so seated, always with the air of aloofness
and detachment, she would take a book from the table and make a show of
becoming absorbed in its contents. Matters being thus advanced, the Shah
de Perse would make a show of becoming absorbed in searchings for an
imaginary mouse--but so would conduct his fictitious quest for that
supposititious animal as eventually to achieve for himself a strategic
position close behind Madame Jolicoeur's chair. Then, dramatically,
the pleasing end of the game would come: as the Shah de Perse--leaping
with the distinguishing grace and lightness of his Persian race--would
flash upward and "surprise" Madame Jolicoeur by crowning her
white-capped head with his small black person, all a-shake with
triumphant purrs! It was a charming little comedy--and so well
understood by the Shah de Perse that he never ventured to essay it
under other, and more intimate, conditions of night-cap use; even as he
never failed to engage in it with spirit when his white lure properly
was set for him above the back of Madame Jolicoeur's chair. It was as
though to the Shah de Perse the white night-cap of Madame Jolicoeur,
displayed in accordance with the rules of the game, were an oriflamme:
akin to, but in minor points differing fr