So I didn't go to sleep right off, but some one else did, and there, just outside the window, if one o' them cats didn't begin. "Wow-w-w, wow-w-w, wow-w-w, meyow-w-w," and all such a pretty tune, finished off with a long low swear at the end. I stood it for ten minutes good, turning first one side, and then another, pulling the clothes over my ear, and at last ramming my head right under, with my fingers stuck in my ears, but there, Lor' bless you, that was no good, for I'll warrant the song of one of them pretty, soft, furry nightingales to go through anything, and at last I finds that I was only smothering myself for nowt, and I puts my head out of the clothes again, and give a great sigh. "Me-ow-ow-ow," says my friend on the tiles. "Hear that, Polly?" I says. No answer. "Me-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow," says my friend outside. "Hear that, Polly?" I says, for there warn't no fun in putting up with all the noise yourself, when there was some one else in the room to take half share. "Polly," I says, giving her a nudge, "hear that?" "Eh!" she says; "what say?" "Hear that?" I says. "Yes," she says; "what?" "Why, you were asleep," I says. "That I'm sure I warn't," she says. "Well, then, did you hear that?" I says. "Yes; what was it?" she says. "What was it?" I says. "There; go to sleep again," I says; for I felt quite rusty to think anybody else could sleep through such a row, while I couldn't. "Meyow--meyow--wow--wow-w-w-w," goes the music again. "Two on 'em," I says, as I lay listening, and there it went on getting louder and louder every moment, both sides and over the way, and up and down the street, till I'm blest if I could stand it any longer. "Oh, you beauties," I says; "if I only had a gun." And then I lay there, listening and wondering whether I mightn't just as well get up and have a pipe; and at last of all, because I couldn't stand it any longer, I gets up, goes to the window, opens it softly, and says-- "Ssh!" Lor' bless you! you might just as well have said nothing, for there they were a-going it all round to that degree, that it was something awful, and I stood there half dressed, and leaning out of the window, wondering what was best to be done. There was no mistake about it; there they were, cats of all sorts and sizes, and of all kinds of voices--some was very shrill, some very hoarse, and some round and deep-toned, and meller. Now and then some one would open a winder, and cry, "Ssh," same as I did, but as soon as they smelt what a sharp frost it was, they shut them down again, and at last I did the same, and made up my mind as I crept into bed again, as I'd go where there was no cats. Yes, that was a capital idea, that was--to move to a place where there was no cats, and on the strength of that determination, I went off fast asleep.