The Countess of Lowndes Square, and Other StoriesBenson, E. F. (Edward Frederic)
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The Countess of Lowndes Square, and Other Stories
Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic)
English fiction -- 20th century; Short stories, English
The jungle in question was a space of some dozen yards, where in spring
daffodils grew in clumps of sunshine and fritillaries hung their
speckled bells. There were pæonies also planted in the grass, and a
briar-rose, and an apple-tree; nothing, as I have said, was remarkable
in itself, but it was fraught with amazing possibilities to the keen
imagination of Puss-cat. At the bottom of this strip of untamed jungle
the lawn began, and it was one of Puss-cat’s plans to hide at the edge
of the jungle, flattening herself out till she looked like a shadow of
something else. If luck served her, Jill, sooner or later in the pursuit
of interesting smells, would pass close to the edge of the jungle
without seeing her. The moment Jill had gone by, Puss-cat would stretch
out a discreet paw, and just touch Jill on the hind-quarters. Jill, of
course, had to turn round to see what this inexplicable thing meant, and
on the moment Puss-cat would fling herself into the air and descend
tiger-like on Jill’s back. That was the beginning of the game, and it
contained more vicissitudes than a round of golf. There were ambushes
and scurryings innumerable, assaults from the apple-tree, repulsions
from behind the garden roller, periods of absolute quiescence, suddenly
and wildly broken by swift flanking movements through the sweet-peas,
and at the end a failure of wind and limb, and Jill would lie panting on
the bank, and Puss-cat, having put off dinner, proceed to clean herself
for her evening duties. She had to be smart at dinner-time, whether we
were dining alone, or whether there was a dinner-party, for she was
never a tea-gown cat, and she dressed for her dinner, even if we were
dining out. She was not responsible for that; what she was responsible
for was to be tidy herself.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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