"So I will," responded the blouse, with assurance; and leaving his stool abruptly, he ran into the closet aforementioned, and brought back a kitten, which as he held it by the nape of its neck came peaceably enough, but upon his dropping it roughly to the floor, set up a squeak. Now the wrath of Aronach appeared too profound for utterance. Raising his deep-set but lightsome eyes from a perfect thicket of lashes, he gave the impertinent one look which reminded me of Van Amburgh in the lion's den. Then, ladling three or four spoonfuls of soup or broth into a plate, he set the plate upon the floor and the kitten at it, so seriously, that I dared not laugh. The kitten, meantime, unused to strong meats, for it was not a week-old mite, mewed and whined in antiphon to the savage lamentations of another cat in the closet, its maternal parent. The blouse never stirred an inch, save carelessly to sneer over his shoulder at me; and I never loved him from that moment. But Santonio nodded to me significantly, as to say, "Come here!" and I came and planted my stool at his side. Aronach took no notice, but went on pouring coffee, one cup of which he set by the kitten. Again she piteously smelled, but finding it even worse than the broth, she crept up to the closet-door and smelled at that. "Go up!" said Aronach, to the blouse, "and send Burney to his supper. He shall have the cat's supper, as thou hast given thine to the cat." He went out sulkily, and the wail above ceased. I also heard footsteps, but he came back again alone. "He won't come down." "Won't! Did he say 'won't,' Iskar? Have a care!" "He says he wants no supper." "That I have taken away his stomach, eh? Come hither, thou black and white bird that art not yet a pyet." This was to me; I was just sliding from my stool. "Eat and drink first, and then thou shalt carry it to him. Thou lookest better brought up. Don't grimace, Iskar, or thou shalt sleep in the cupboard with the cat, and the rats shall dance in thy fine curls. So now eat, Aukester, if that be thy name." "Sir, I am Carl; will you please to call me Carl?" He gave me a glance from behind the coffee-stand. Sparks as from steel seemed to come out of his orbs and fly about my brain; but I was not frightened the least, for the lips of this austerest of autocrats were smiling like sunlight beneath the silver hair. I saw at this moment that Aronach had a bowl of smoking milk crammed with bread by his side, and believing it to be for the violin up in the clouds, and concluding inferentially that the unseen was some one very small, I entreated Aronach without fear to let me carry it to him while yet it smoked.