"It ain't quite falled away yet, sir. This here cat as ever you sees--here, Tabby dear, get up and show yourself to the gentles--this here cat, sir, a week ago, was took so ill of the palsy that it shook all over like a leaf. I thought it was agoing to die; but at last, thinks I, why shouldn't St Toper cure she, as he cures so many as have fits? And so, sir, I goes and fetches a little water, and flings it on Tabby's face, and the moment she felt the water she stops the shaking, and walks about as well as ever." "Had she had any breakfast that morning?" "No, sir, fasting from all but air; I gave her nothing from the night before, when she supped on a mouse." Mr Swallowlies stooped down and laid his hand on the cat, which was purring and rubbing its fur against his leg. "A strange instance this," he said, "of the efficacy of the ancient faith." "Do you believe it, sir?" I inquired. "Why not, sir? I don't attribute this, of course, to the direct operation of St Toper; but it certainly was endowed with this virtue to be evidence of his holy life. A wonderful animal this, Mrs Wheedler,--you would not probably wish to part with it?" "I have two or three other cats, sir; but I'm very poor, and a little money is more useful to me than old Tabby." "I'll speak to you in a little on the subject. Meanwhile, have you any other instances of cure?" "Not to speak of, sir," replied Janet, delighted with the deference she was treated with. "That there little calf as you sees among the cabbage was born with five legs, and without ever a tail." "Five legs! bless me!" exclaimed Mr Swallowlies--"how very strange!--it has only four now." "Ah, sir! that's all owing to the well. I takes it to the spring, and sprinkles the fifth leg three times, and immediately it gives a jerk, and up goes the leg into its body, like the winding up of a jack-chain; and so I goes to work again, and flings a bucketful on its back, and, in a minute or two, out comes a tail,--and there it is, and not a single mark left of where the additional leg had disappeared." "This is most interesting!" exclaimed Mr Swallowlies. "Have you got the bucket you used in aspersing the calf?" "There it be, sir," said Janet, pointing to a tub of some size, that was placed upright against the wall. "A blessed instrument, indeed," said the gentleman, bowing most respectfully, as he sounded with his knuckles on the rim. "I must have some minutes' conversation with you, Mrs Wheedler, for I make a point of never taking any stories, which at first sight appear improbable, without sedulous inquiry and anxious proof." "I hear the dinner-bell," I said at this moment, for I heard Captain Smith performing the "Roast beef of Old England" on a key-bugle, which was the concerted signal for our assembling where the provender had been spread; and I used a little more vigour than usual in drawing the young ladies away.