I do not propose to give the events of the fortnight in detail, but
rather to summarise them for the benefit of others who, like myself, may
be called upon unexpectedly to entertain a feline guest. The name of my
visitor was Kim, though I am told that most cats are called William Pitt,
after the statesman. He was a short-haired tabby cat, some eighteen
months old, and a fine, large fellow for his age. While he was with me
he usually wore a white waistcoat, and there was a white mark on his
face, as if some milk had been spilled there when he was a kitten. His
eyes were very large and of the colour of stage sunlight, and they
haunted me from the moment when I raised the lid of the hamper in which
he arrived. They were always significant and always inscrutable, but I
could not help staring into them in the hope of discovering their
meaning. I think he knew they fascinated me, for he would keep them wide
open and full of secrets for hours at a time.
I had been informed that his name was Kim because he was the little
friend of all the world, but at the first I found him reticent and of an
independent disposition. I had always believed that cats purred when you
stroked them, but when I stroked him he would endure it in silence for a
minute and then retire to a corner of the room and make an elaborate and,
under the circumstances, uncomplimentary toilet. In my inexperience I
was afraid that he had taken a dislike to me, but one evening, after he
had been with me three days, he climbed into my lap and went to sleep.
My pipe was on the mantelpiece, and as Kim weighed over twelve pounds my
legs grew very cramped; but I knew better than to disturb him, and he
slept very comfortably till two in the morning. He repeated this
compliment on several occasions, but when I lifted him into my lap he
always got off immediately, and made me feel that I had been ill-treating
him. His choice of sleeping-places was strange. If I was reading, he
waited till I laid the book down on the table and then fell asleep on top
of it. When I was writing and he had grown weary of turning his head
from side to side to follow the birdlike flight of the pen to the
ink-pot, he loved to settle himself down on the wet manuscript and blink
drowsily at my embarrassment. Once when I ventured to lift him off he
sulked under the table all the afternoon, and I did not repeat the
experiment. He seemed to be a very sensitive cat.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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