Incidentally, a cookery-book for cats is badly needed. Unlike dogs, they are gourmets rather than gourmands, and their appetites seem to languish if they do not have a continual change of fare. They have subtle palates; Kim liked gorgonzola cheese and curried rabbit, but he would not eat chicken in any form. I found anchovy sauce very useful to make a meal savoury that Kim had not thought palatable enough to steal, and the wise host will hold this condiment in reserve for such occasions. There is no relying on their likes or dislikes; they will eat something with avidity one day and reject it with infinite distaste the next. On the whole it was a busy fortnight, and it was not without a certain relief that I said farewell to my emotional guest and sent him back to his owner. Designedly, as I believe, he had succeeded in making me painfully self-conscious, so that I could not do anything without being led to feel that in some way I was sinning against the laws of hospitality. It was pleasant to realise that my life was once more my own, and that I was free from the critical inspection of those significant, inscrutable eyes. I have commented on the independence of his character; it would be unjust if I failed to mention the one exception. One night I was awakened by a soft paw, a paw innocent of all claws, patting me gently on the cheek, and in the dark I was aware of Kim sitting on my pillow. I supposed that he was lonely and put up my hand to stroke him. Then for once in a way the proudest of sentient beings was pleased to drop the mask of his pride and purr loudly and without restraint. In the morning he treated me with exaggerated coldness, but I was not cheated into believing that his friendliness had been a dream. There are possibilities about Kim; and I believe that if he were to stop with me for two years we should come to a very tolerable understanding. ON PIRATES OF the nameless classics which were of so much concern to all of us when we were young, the most important were certainly those salt and blusterous volumes that told of pirates. It was in vain for kindly relatives to give us books on Nelson and his like; for their craft, beautiful though they might be to the eye, had ever the moralities lurking between decks, and if we met them it was only that we might make their crews walk the plank, and add new stores of guns and treasure to the crimson vessel with the sinister flag which it was our pleasure to command.