Maurice in his cat shape dreaded more and more the time when Lord Hugh in the boy shape should come back from Dr. Strongitharm's. He knew--who better?--exactly the kind of things boys do to cats, and he trembled to the end of his handsome half-Persian tail. And then the boy came home from Dr. Strongitharm's, and at the first sound of his boots in the hall Maurice in the cat's body fled with silent haste to hide in the boot-cupboard. Here, ten minutes later, the boy that had come back from Dr. Strongitharm's found him. Maurice fluffed up his tail and unsheathed his claws. Whatever this boy was going to do to him Maurice meant to resist, and his resistance should hurt the boy as much as possible. I am sorry to say Maurice swore softly among the boots, but cat-swearing is not really wrong. 'Come out, you old duffer,' said Lord Hugh in the boy shape of Maurice. 'I'm not going to hurt you.' 'I'll see to that,' said Maurice, backing into the corner, all teeth and claws. 'Oh, I've had such a time!' said Lord Hugh. 'It's no use, you know, old chap; I can see where you are by your green eyes. My word, they do shine. I've been caned and shut up in a dark room and given thousands of lines to write out.' 'I've been beaten, too, if you come to that,' mewed Maurice. 'Besides the butcher's dog.' It was an intense relief to speak to some one who could understand his mews. 'Well, I suppose it's Pax for the future,' said Lord Hugh; 'if you won't come out, you won't. Please leave off being a cat and be Maurice again.' And instantly Maurice, amid a heap of goloshes and old tennis bats, felt with a swelling heart that he was no longer a cat. No more of those undignified four legs, those tiresome pointed ears, so difficult to wash, that furry coat, that contemptible tail, and that terrible inability to express all one's feelings in two words--'mew' and 'purr.' He scrambled out of the cupboard, and the boots and goloshes fell off him like spray off a bather. He stood upright in those very chequered knickerbockers that were so terrible when their knees held one vice-like, while things were tied to one's tail. He was face to face with another boy, exactly like himself. '_You_ haven't changed, then--but there can't be two Maurices.' 'There sha'n't be; not if I know it,' said the other boy; 'a boy's life's a dog's life. Quick, before any one comes.' 'Quick what?' asked Maurice. 'Why tell me to leave off being a boy, and to be Lord Hugh Cecil again.' Maurice told him at once. And at once the boy was gone, and there was Lord Hugh in his own shape, purring politely, yet with a watchful eye on Maurice's movements. 'Oh, you needn't be afraid, old chap. It's Pax right enough,' Maurice murmured in the ear of Lord Hugh. And Lord Hugh, arching his back under Maurice's stroking hand, replied with a purrrr-meaow that spoke volumes. 'Oh, Maurice, here you are. It _is_ nice of you to be nice to Lord Hugh, when it was because of him you----'