‘I wish I’d never let him go on the journey,’ said Sally, ‘and yet how could I have helped it? His mind was made up. I know he won’t come back. He told me not to worry until after three days, and that meant that, if he did not come back then, something would have happened.’ The three women to whose apron strings Oxford had been tied, had been around to the neighbors asking if any one had seen a tiger cat with white paws and a white breast. As there were several cats of this sort in the neighborhood, many people thought they had seen him, but the cat never proved to be Oxford himself. ‘Black Sam, Sam Furbush-Tailby, I mean, was once gone ten days,’ said Elvira. ‘Oxford will probably come back.’ ‘Several of your pets have never come back,’ said Miss Winifred. ‘I am going over to Handerson Court,’ said Elvira. ‘Maybe some one there will have seen him.’ As Elvira went along the strip of land that led to Handerson Court, she heard a faint mew. It seemed a cry of distress, and it sounded to her like Oxford’s voice. She hurried over the grass and went through the gap in the fence. Presently she saw a thin tiger cat coming toward her with his head firmly encased in a fish can that some one must have carelessly thrown away without flattening it. ‘Oh, poor pussy, whoever you are, you are in an awful fix,’ said Elvira. As the cat came nearer, she could hardly believe it was Oxford, he looked so thin, but she thought she recognized the markings on his tail. Another minute and there was no doubt at all, for he began to mew piteously again, and it was Oxford’s voice. The proud Oxford, who felt affection, but seldom showed it, was delighted to recognize the voice of a friend. Elvira picked him up and carried the frightened, struggling cat to the house. ‘Poor dear, where have you been?’ she asked him. ‘You must have been shut in somewhere, and when they found you and let you out, you must have been so hungry that you smelled the fish and thought you could get some of it.’ She put Oxford down in the kitchen. Sally was frightened at first at the sight of the can with no head to be seen, but when she found it was really Oxford, she ran up to him. Poor Oxford! Suppose they could not get his head out of the can. But Elvira and Miss Harvey worked away at him, and presently Oxford’s head emerged, but his beautiful fur was all over rust. Elvira stamped on the can to flatten it out. ‘No cat will ever be caught in that can again,’ she said. Sally flew to wash Oxford, and Miss Harvey and Elvira began to scrub him, while Miss Winifred stood in the doorway and said, ‘Poor cat, do you suppose he will ever get over it?’ ‘I’m all right,’ Oxford said, but only Sally understood. ‘Where were you?’ Sally asked. ‘Why didn’t you come home before? Did you have good hunting?’ ‘I have been in prison, Sally,’ said Oxford. ‘I was accidentally shut up in a building without food, so when I came out, I was very hungry.’