There was no Auntie May to fetch Zobeide in. She wasn't even told lest it sent up her temperature. Besides, I fancied some one had stolen Zobeide, and I remembered that Auntie May once said that one merit of having valuable cats was that if they got lost or were stolen it wasn't to do them harm; that the thief would cherish every hair of the coat of a Blue Persian, and that it was only a question of change of residence and missing the departed, without the agony of imagining all sorts of horrid fates that might have befallen them. She said she could never sleep at night if she had to think of the possibility of our coming upon the streets and being carried off to be vivisected. Perhaps poor Charlie got vivisected! Oh dear! Mother and I and Fred did not break our hearts or care half so much about Zobeide as poor Mr. Graham did. He took an immense lot of trouble, and went to the police station about her, and when he came home he wrote on a great piece of paper, in copy-book hand: LOST Valuable Persian Cat On the Thirty-first instant from No. 100 Egerton Gardens. Whoever will bring the same back to owner will receive the sum of Five Pounds. This he had printed, and mother says she heard that a copy was stuck in the window of every shop in the district. Of course that curious Mary had to go out and spy them all out and come home and tell cook. We were a great deal in the kitchen at this period, and liked it in a way. It was warmer than anywhere else in the house, and there were plenty of odd things good to eat, though Auntie May strictly forbade Mary or cook to feed us between meals. Our meals were always arranged beforehand. For instance, Fred could not eat fish--it always made him sick. He also liked a thing better if he had stolen it. When he was ill and wouldn't eat his bread and milk they put it on the china-table to tempt him, and it did. He would eat all quickly, thinking he would get shooed off every other minute. Mother could not bear lentils; she had never been brought up to them, she said. Now I loved them, also cod-liver-oil biscuits. None of us could stand salt meat or veal, but game, of course, was heaven. We had different ways with the bones. I like to split mine up and get the juice that is inside the bone out and suck it. Mother thought it would hurt our teeth, and she only picked hers. As she was getting a little old, she had raw meat twice a week to strengthen her, and in the winter Auntie May always gave her cod-liver-oil. What she really liked best was burnt currants out of a cake. She used to sit at Auntie May's elbow and pick them out of her mouth. I have a weakness for anchovy sandwiches, and Auntie May always gratifies it.