Next morning over my breakfast, I got thinking, and come to the conclusion, that I'd cut myself out a bit of a job. Where was I to get a little house or lodgings where there was no cats, for were not the happy, domestic creatures everywhere? No; that was of no use, but I warn't going to stand having my rest broken night after night in that way; so I mounted a trap, for I'd made up my mind, that out of revenge, I'd have a full-sized railway rug lined with scarlet cloth, while the rug itself should be of _fur_. First night I sets my trap, I baited it with a bit of herring. Goes next morning and found the herring had been dragged out at the side, and the trap warn't sprung. Sets it next night, baited with two sprats; goes next morning to find 'em gone, but no pussy. And so I went on, week after week, till I got tired out, and tried poison, which hit the wrong game, and killed our neighbour's tarrier dog. Then I thought I'd try an air-gun, but somehow or another there was a fault in that gun, for it wouldn't shoot straight, and I never hit one of the nuisances. A regular powder-and-shot gun I couldn't try, because it would have spoken so loud, that all the neighbours would have heard and known who was killing the cats. Last of all, one moonlight night I was down at the bottom of our garden, when I happens to look up towards the back door, and see a long-tailed tortoise-shell beauty sneaking into the kitchen. "All right, my pretty one," I says, quietly. "You'll do for the middle of the rug," and then stealing softly up, I got to the door, slips in, and had it to in a moment, and then getting hold of the copper-stick and lid, just like a sword and shield, I goes forward to the attack. No mistake, there was Mrs Puss glaring at me like a small tiger, and as I advanced, she made a rush by me, but there was no escape that way, and then I shut the kitchen-door. Bang--crash went the crockery, for as I made a hit at the brute, she flew on to the dresser, and along one of the shelves, sending jugs and plates down helter-skelter on the floor, where they smashed to bits. "All down to your credit, my beauty," I says, and I made another hit at her, when "whoosh," spitting and swearing, she was up on the chimney-piece in a jiffey, and down came the candlesticks, while Polly puts her head in at the door, and then, seeing what was the matter, slips off again in a moment, bangs the door to, and keeps on shouting to me to drive the thing out. But talking was one thing, and acting another, for you never did see such a beast; she was here, there, and everywhere in the same moment; and though I kept hitting at her with the copper-stick, I could hit anything else but her, as you'd have said, if you'd seen me fetch the vegetable-dish and cover off the dresser with a smash, and then seen the copper lid split in two, when I shied it at her.