Feed your pussy well, then, if you would have her be faithful and honest, and keep your house clear of mice and rats. I have lived a good deal in apartments in my time, and I have always avoided places where there was a lean and hungry-looking cat. It is a sure sign of irregularity and bad housekeeping. Twice a day is often enough, but not too often, to feed your cat, and it is better to let her have her allowance put down to her at once, instead of feeding her with tid-bits. Nothing can be better for pussy's breakfast than oatmeal porridge and sweet milk. _Entre nous_, reader, nothing could be better for your own breakfast. Oatmeal is the food of both mind and matter, the food of the hero and the poet; it was the food of Wallace, Bruce, and Walter Scott, and has been the food of brave men and good since their day. "Oh! were I able to rehearse Scotch oatmeal's praise in proper verse, I'd blaw it oot as loud and fierce, As piper's drones could blaw, man." But I cannot wonder for a single moment at this favourite Scottish food being in disrepute in England, because hardly anyone knows how to make it. Our cook at sea once undertook to supply our mess with a daily matutinal meal of porridge, and of oatcakes too. He was sure he could make them, because his "father had once lived in Scotland." Nevertheless, I gave him some additional information, and we, the Scottish officers, of whom there were two or three besides myself, were in high glee, and took an extra turn on deck the first morning, to give us a good appetite for the great coming double event. Then down we bolted to our porridge. Porridge! save the name, such a slimy, thin, disgusting mess you never saw! Well might our chief engineer call out: "Tak' it awa', steward, tak' it awa'; it would scunner (sicken) the de'il himsel'!" "But, hurrah!" I cried, "there's the oatcakes to come. Steward, where are the oatcakes?" The steward lifted the cover from the dish on which was wont to repose our delicious "'spatch cock," or savoury curry, and there, lo and behold! half-a-dozen things of the shape and thickness of a ship's biscuit, black, and wet, and steaming, and we were supposed to eat them _with a knife and fork_! Meanwhile the ham and eggs were fast disappearing among the Englishmen at the other end of the table, and we poor Scots had to go without our breakfast, and get laughed at into the bargain.