Upon our arrival at Clover Lodge there was enough to do to keep every one busy. The frantic cat was set free as soon as we arrived and she scudded under the house and we saw no more of her for some time. I did not think much of it at the moment, but when after our somewhat picnic dinner I heard Minerva at the back of the house calling in heart breaking tones “Miss Pussy, Miss Pussy, woan’ you come out? Come ou—t,” I realized that I should have chained the cat in the kitchen. It might stay away for a day or two in order to express its contempt for people who could subject it to such humiliation. I was enjoying a smoke and Ethel was lying down. Oh, what a blessed relief this was from the noise and odours and bustle of the city! “I can’t get out. Mist. Vernon! Mist. Vernon! I can’t get out. Ow.” The sounds seemed to come from under the kitchen. I side-tracked my _peaceful_ thoughts, laid my cigar on the railing of the piazza and ran around to the kitchen door and beheld Minerva wedged fast under the house. Clover Lodge has a very diminutive cellar which does not extend as far as the kitchen. There is a space of some two feet between the kitchen floor and the ground, used as a receptacle for various odds and ends in the way of boxes, clothes poles and the like, and our stout Minerva had attempted to creep under there in order to get Miss Pussy, whose tell-tale eyes gleamed at her from the darkness. She had failed to take into account the fact that her head could go where her body could not follow and she had become stuck. “It’s all right, Minerva. I’ll get you out. There’s very little room for promenading there. I’ll have to knock a board out. I’ll get an axe.” She kept up her groaning and at last Ethel was aroused by it, and, somewhat alarmed, hurried into the kitchen and saw the sprawling figure of Minerva with Clover Lodge on her back. The spectacle appealed to her sense of humour and she retreated to where she could laugh. I had a somewhat ticklish job to get Minerva out unhurt. It was awkward splitting the board without touching her, but I compassed it at last, although each stroke of the axe was followed by a groan from Minerva, a spit from the cat and a suppressed laugh from Ethel, who was viewing the proceedings from a little distance. When the board fell away and had been removed, Minerva, like an alligator, crawled in a little farther, so as to turn around, and then she crawled out face foremost, leaving Miss Pussy saying most ungenerous things there in the dusk. “The cat will come out in a while, Minerva,” said I. “Are you hurt?”