‘I suppose she has a certain claim to it, but he never knew us,’ said Oxford. ‘I am sure he would have loved us if he had known us. Don’t you remember the story that has come down to us, of how he held our great-grandfather, William Furbush-Tailby, on his knee? Anyway, we get a great deal more good out of the place than Miss Winifred. I have never seen her climb a tree, and we can climb one any time and get away from a dog, and she never goes into the Wild Wood, and she does not know all our little hiding-places, and she could not get into them, anyway.’ ‘I do feel as if we were more important,’ said Sally. ‘Many a time I’ve heard Elvira say, “I’ll come to you in a few minutes, Miss Winifred, but Oxford has just come in. I must give him his supper, for he won’t understand being kept waiting.”’ But whoever the true owner of the house might be, it certainly did not belong to Peter, and Oxford had told him so on more than one occasion. He had chased him off the place several times, but Peter, although he seemed gentle, was a persistent soul, and as he was fond of the bread and canned salmon that kind Elvira put out on the back piazza for him, he came back over and over again. ‘If I ever really get my paw on him, I’ll give him such a thrashing that he’ll remember it all his life,’ Oxford said to Sally. Now it just darted through Sally’s mind, that it might be the other way around, for Peter, although he was mild in his demeanor, was larger than Oxford, and at least two years older, but being wise beyond her months, she merely said, ‘It will be grand, Oxford, if you can thrash him.’ ‘Of course I can,’ said her brother, swelling with pride. ‘Don’t you remember the tradition about the first Furbush, Martha’s ancestor, how he would get the better of every cat in a fight and earned the name of William the Conqueror?’ ‘Yes,’ said Sally, ‘I remember, but he was a full-grown cat.’ ‘I don’t expect to get hurt, and it is certainly best to get rid of that vagabond at once, before Elvira gets fond of him.’ The fight came off one bright November day. Sally was looking out of the kitchen window, and Oxford was sunning himself in the back yard. There was a plate of canned salmon mixed with bread on the back piazza. That could not be for Oxford, for both he and she had grown so dainty that they liked stew meat and haddock better than canned salmon. Elvira must be leaving it out there for some cat. She saw Peter coming through a place in the fence that was made for small animals to get through. She hoped to attract Oxford’s attention and ran around to the kitchen door, but it was closed. Jumping up on the window-sill again, she saw Peter quickly run up the steps and begin to taste the food. Oxford flew up the steps and began to fight Peter. He flew at Oxford and put his claws in his fur. Oxford grappled with him, and the two cats went rolling down the steps.