We soon could do more than lap, we could eat things. Auntie May and Rosamond had a chafing-dish, and they used to cook all sorts of messes in it for us and for mother, who was very fussy about her food, and took dislikes to the most ordinary things. For instance, porridge she would not touch, or cod-liver oil biscuits, while Hovis food, or Horlick's, or a sardine put her out of her mind with delight. They say that a sardine will sometimes bring a dying cat back to life. They burnt methylated spirit in the chafing-dish, and the first time I saw the sly curling flame winding up among Auntie May's new novel, I confess I was frightened. But mother reassured us; she said if I looked attentively I would see that it was a very obedient flame, and would go straight up into the air and do no harm unless they interrupted it. She gave it a wide berth herself, and hoped we would do the same when we began to be able to get out of our basket and walk about. Auntie May and Rosamond were not so very careful, for once when they thought the spirit was getting low, Rosamond took the whole bottle and poured some more on. Huh! it took fire, and she dropped it pretty quick, and it broke, and there were three separate burning pools on the floor. Mother put a paw over us all, though we could not have got out of the bed even if we had wanted to, and gripped Freddy by the neck, ready to lift him out if it should be necessary. Luckily Auntie May was there, and there was a large flowerpot full of earth in the room. She tilted out the flower, head over roots, and poured the earth on the burning pools, instead of the water which Rosamond had torn off to the bathroom to get. It was soon out, and the poor child got a scolding and a lesson in chemistry from her grandpapa. They had not got proper things to work with, mother said. They had no spoon, but used to stir up the mixture with the butt-end of one of Auntie May's pens. When it was ready, they would pour it out into any piece of china that was handy--Japanese pots and plates that cost a fortune, so I was told. Then they washed them up in the bath, and we used to hear this sort of thing: 'Mind that cloisonné, Rosamond!' or, 'That is a bit of Persian four-mark you have chipped, I do believe!' But it was no matter, they got a new bit out of the studio. Mr. Graham was a collector, and nothing was too good for the cats.