George replied briskly. He forced himself to take confidence, though every moment made yet more difficult the struggle to disbelieve what his eyes told him. “Not at all unlike,” he affirmed. “Very similar, in fact. Yes, I should say very similar indeed.” Still in the same tone of one who is being reluctantly convinced, Mr. Marrapit again played Echo's part: “Very similar indeed? You grant that?” “Certainly,” George admitted frankly. “Certainly. I do not wonder you were mistaken.” “Nor I,” Mr. Marrapit smoothly replied. “Indeed, in Mrs. Major's cat I detect certain signs which my Rose has long borne but which she has no longer, if the cat you bring is she?” “Eh?” said George. “Certain signs,” Mr. Marrapit repeated, with the smoothness of flowing oil, “which I recollect in my Rose. The mark, for example, where her left ear was abrased by Mr. Wyvern's blood-thirsty bull-terrier.” George stooped to the cats. Pointing, he cried triumphantly: “Yes, and there is the mark!” “Yes,” Mr. Marrapit pronounced mildly. “Yes, but you are now looking at Mrs. Major's cat.” “Hem!” said Mrs. Major. “Hem!” Like one who has stepped upon hot iron George started back, stared aghast. A further “hem,” with which a chuckle was mixed, came from Mrs. Major; from my collapsed Mary upon the edge of the sofa a sniff that was mingled groan and sob. George put a hand to his head. This young man's senses were ajostle and awhirl. Well he remembered that mark which by disastrous blunder he had indicated on Mrs. Major's cat; vainly he sought it on his own. Yet his was the Rose. Was this a nightmare, then, and no true thing? He put his hand to his head. “Looking at Mrs. Major's cat,” repeated Mr. Marrapit, his tone smooth as the trickle of oil. George fought on. “Quite so. Quite so. I know that. That is what makes it so extraordinary--that this cat which you call Mrs. Major's and think is the Rose should have the very mark that our Rose had.” “But our Rose has not--if that is she.” “Ah! not now,” George said impressively. “Not now. It healed. Healed months ago. Don't you remember my saying one morning, 'The Rose's ear is quite healed now'?” “I do not, sir,” snapped Mr. Marrapit, with alarming sharpness. “Oh!” said George. “Oh!” “Hem!” fired Mrs. Major. “Hem! Hem!” “That tail,” spoke Mr. Marrapit, a sinister hardness now behind the oiliness. “Mark those tails.” George marked. To this young man's disordered mind the room took on the appearance of a forest of waving tails. “Well?” rapped Mr. Marrapit. “You note those tails? Mrs. Major's cat has a verdant tail, a bush-like tail. Yours has a rat tail. Do you recollect my pride in the luxuriousness of the Rose's tail?” George blundered along the path he had chosen. “Formerly,” he said, “not latterly. Latterly, if you remember, there was a remarkable falling off in the Rose's tail. Her tail moulted. It shed hairs. I remember worrying over it. I remember--”