"Good heavens, I don't want to criticize her!" cried Crane. "I only want to tell her how highly I think of her." "In my opinion, Burton," Tucker began, when an incident occurred that entirely changed the situation. A very large elderly gray cat walked into the room, with the step of one who has always been welcome, and approaching Tucker's chair as if it were a familiar place, he jumped suddenly upon his knee and began to purr in his face. Tucker, under the most favorable circumstances, was not at his best in the early morning. Later in the day he might have borne such an occurrence with more calm, but before ten o'clock he was like a man without armor against such attacks. He sprang to his feet with an exclamation, and drove the cat ahead of him from the room, returning alone an instant later. "It is outrageous," he said, when he returned, "that our lives are to be rendered miserable by that filthy beast." "Sit down, Tuck," said Burton, who was talking about wines with the butler. "My life is not rendered in the least miserable. The champagne, Smithfield, ought to go on the ice--" Tucker, however, could not distract his mind so quickly from the thought of the outrage to which he had just been subjected. "I must really ask you, Burton," he said, "before you go on with your orders, to insist that that animal be drowned, or at least sent out of the house--" "Oh, I beg, sir, that you won't do that," broke in Smithfield. "The cat belongs to the cook, and I really could not say, sir, what she might do, if the cat were put out of the house." "We seem to hear a vast amount about what this cook likes and doesn't like," said Tucker, dribbling a little more hot milk into his half cup of coffee. "The house, I believe, is not run entirely for her convenience." It is possible that Crane had already been rendered slightly inimical to his friend's point of view, but he was saved the trouble of answering him, for at this moment the cook herself entered the room, in what no one present doubted for an instant was a towering rage. She was wearing a sky blue gingham dress, her eyes were shining frightfully, and her cheeks were very pink. At the sight of her, all conversation died away. The butler approaching her, attempted to draw her aside, murmuring something to which she paid no attention. "No," she said aloud, pulling her arm away from his restraining hand, "I will not go away and leave it to you. I will not stay in any house where dumb animals are ill-treated, least of all, my own dear cat." It is, as most of us know to our cost, easier to be pompous than dignified when one feels oneself in the wrong. "Pooh," said Tucker, "your cat was not ill-treated. She had no business in the dining-room." "He was kicked," said the cook. "Come, my girl," returned Tucker, "this is not the way to speak to your employer."