At this point the rapping was renewed more loudly. My resolution suddenly changed, and I resolved that I would explore the mystery. Making my way to the door I flung it wide open. The landing was in darkness; no voice gave answer to my challenge, and, feeling a little nervous, I slammed the door and went back to my arm-chair by the fire. Weird――ghastly――inscrutable――was the apparition that awaited me! Stretched upon the hearth-rug at my feet lay a large cat of ebon blackness, glaring at me with a pair of wild eyes in which anger was mingled with an expression of diabolical sarcasm. The blood curdled in my veins; I seized the poker and yelled, “Get out, beast! How dare you come in here? Go away directly, or――――!” The lips of the animal opened and pronounced slowly and solemnly the words “_Never no more!_” My hair stood on end, and the poker fell from my grasp. “Horrible being!” I cried;――“fearful and ungrammatical being leave me, and return to darkness and the Stygian shore.” “_Never no more!_” said the brute: “I’ve come to stay for ever.” “Nonsense, monster; you are insane,” I shouted. “Fact, I assure you,” replied my tormentor;――“they hadn’t got no raven handy, and so they sent _me_. It’s about the LEONORA business.” “Ah, that name! Tell me, I implore you, tell me――is she a widow yet? May I hope? Shall I again behold her?” “_Never no more!_” This was too much. I ran and threw the door open again――came back――firmly grasped the poker, and―――― But the beast had sought refuge under the sofa. Thence it retreated beneath my table, and thence under the arm-chair. Round and round the apartment I chased it vainly. Its demoniac laugh thrilled me with rage and horror. * * * * * The cat-fiend still inhabits my gloomy chambers. I have abandoned all hope of expelling it. The creature exists without food, so that the expedient of starvation is impracticable. At all hours of the day and night I am haunted by the wild eyes of my hated persecutor: at all hours of the day and night I hear the detested brute murmuring with a chuckle that maddens me, “_Never no more!_” _Fun_, February 1, 1868. ―――――――― THE CRAVEN. Once upon a midnight lately, might be seen a figure stately, In the Tuileries sedately poring over Roman lore; Annotating, scheming, mapping, Cæsar’s old positions sapping, When there came a something rapping, spirit-rapping at the door. “’Tis some minister,” he muttered, “come, as usual, me to bore.” So to Cæsar turned once more.