When I told Edward all about it, he called me a fool for my pains, and said he could see that the cat was too good a friend to my old charwoman for her to wish to get rid of him. As for Tom’s stealing the tea, it was all a pack of fiddlesticks, and he verily believed that he had never been into the canal at all, and that some fine day I should find old Mother Burgess at the bottom of it. However, he said he would soon put a stop to that game, for he would lock the cat up in the back attic that night, and take it with him to office in his blue bag in the morning; and when he got it down there we should soon find out who was the thief. I told him it was a very good plan, if he would only keep it a secret from Mrs. Burgess, and take care not to go letting the cat out of the bag before he started. [Illustration: “_The Cat did it!_”] Accordingly, I took that naughty Tom up stairs with us when we went to bed, and locked him up in the back attic, safe away from the larder. But not a wink of sleep could we get, for the creature kept on scratching and mee-yowing for better than two hours, and then we were nearly driven out of our wits by hearing a tremendous smash, which Edward said was that brute of a Tom flying at the windows, and told me that if I didn’t jump out of bed directly, that they would all be broken before I could say the name of Mr. John Robinson--for that as the cat was clearly going wild, I had better go up and see what I could do to quiet him. As I went up stairs, I was all of a tremble, and couldn’t keep the candle steady for fright, for I could hear the beast flying about the room, and swearing away like a mad thing, as he was. The very moment I opened the door, he flew at me, for all the world as if he had been a young tiger, and dug his claws (which, I can assure my readers, were just like so many darning needles) so deep into me, that I gave a loud scream, and, letting the night-candlestick fall, I flew down stairs in the dark, with the brute clinging fast to my night-dress. When I got to our room, (though I can’t tell how to goodness I was ever able to do so, I’m sure,) the dragon let go his hold, and ran under our bed, where he stopped, spitting and growling away like anything, and with his eyes like two balls of phosphorus, and his tail as large as a Bologna sausage, or my sable boa. Edward took the poker, and I got a broom, and we kept poking and sh--sh--sh--sh--ewing away as hard as we could, for near upon half an hour, expecting every moment that he would spring out upon us again; in fear of which I kept as close as possible behind dear Edward, who, I must say, displayed more courage, under the circumstances, than I ever gave him credit for, and behaved like another Grace Darling in a moment of such imminent peril. Nor was it until he had thrown a whole jugful of water at the cat, that the savage brute shot out of the room, and rushed down stairs.