There is a general belief that white cats are deaf. I know that some of them cannot hear, and Lump was one of the afflicted. I am bound to say that Lump endured his loss with great equanimity; he was more of a success than I ever was. He has given me more points on living happily in the silence than I ever obtained from any human being. He forgot the drawbacks and enlarged the advantages. Lump was never strikingly popular with my wife. She _would not_ have cats in the house, and, her hearing being good, she could not appreciate the philosophy of this particular specimen. The proper place for cats, in her mind, was the barn, where they may perform their life duty of demolishing rats and mice. There are some humans who, like Lump, are forced into ignoble service when they are really capable of giving instruction in psychology. Long before my time men have been forced to meet their boon companions under cover of darkness, or they have had to make private arrangements for a rendezvous with the “guide, philosopher and friend.” So, sometimes at night, after the rest of the family had retired, I would open the back door. There always was Lump, curled on the mat, ready to share my fire. Many a time as I let him in I have taken down a familiar old book from its shelf and read Thackeray’s poem: “So each shall mourn, in life’s advance, Dear hopes dear friends untimely killed; Shall grieve for many a forfeit chance, And longing passion unfulfilled. Amen! Whatever fate be sent, Pray God the heart may kindly glow, Although the head with care be bent, And whitened with the Winter’s snow. “Come wealth or want, come good or ill, Let old and young accept their part, And bow before the awful will; _And bear it with an honest heart_, Who misses or who wins the prize. Go; lose or conquer as you can, And if you fail, or if you rise, Be each, pray God, a gentleman!” And Lump would sit at the other side of the fire, turn his wise head to one side, and look over at me as if to say: “Old fellow, we are two of a kind—a rejected kind. They pity us for our misfortune; let’s make them envy us for our advantages. I know more of the habits of rats and mice than any cat in this neighborhood, because I have been forced to study them. I have made new ears out of my eyes and nose and brain, and so developed a new sense—instinct, which is worth far more than their hearing. Why can’t you do the same with men?”