"I bear no malice," said Constable Nightingale, who was really a simple-minded, good-hearted fellow; "shake hands, Wigg, and let bygones be bygones. All I want you to do is to let the red cat alone, or to stick to the point, and have done with it once and for all." "Very good, Nightingale," said Constable Wigg, assuming the lofty air of a man who had established his claim to pre-eminence. "I'll stick to the point, and if I don't make Mrs. Middlemore's mind easy, I'll give up. Not easy as long as we're here, but easy when we're gone, as gone we must be some time or other, because it don't stand to reason that this storm's going to last forever. I'm only thinking of you, I give you my word, ma'am." "You're very kind, I'm sure," murmured Mrs. Middlemore, inclining, with the proverbial fickleness of her sex, now to Constable, Nightingale and now to Constable Wigg. "It's the least I can do," proceeded Constable Wigg, addressing himself solely to his hostess, "after the way I've been treated here. Not for the last time, I hope." "Not by a many," said Mrs. Middlemore, smirking at the flatterer, "if it remains with me." "You're monarch of all you survey, ma'am," observed the wily Wigg, smirking back at her, "and remain with you it must, as long as you remain single." "Oh, Mr. Wigg!" "It's nobody's fault but your own if you do; there's not many as can pick and choose, but you're one as can. Perhaps you're hard to please, ma'am----" "I ain't," said Mrs. Middlemore, so energetically that Constable Nightingale began to think it time to interfere. "You're forgetting the red cat, Wigg," he said. "Not at all," said Constable Wigg, blandly; "I'm coming to it, but I don't forget that Mrs. Middlemore has nerves. It amounts to this, ma'am. I've read a bit in my time, and I'm going to give you--_and_ Nightingale, if he ain't too proud--the benefit of it. You _did_ see a red cat, ma'am." "Did I?" said Mrs. Middlemore, looking around with a shiver. "You did, ma'am, and yet the cat wasn't red. I thought it was red, and so did Nightingale, if he'll speak the truth. I'll wait for him to say." "I won't keep you waiting long," said Constable Nightingale, in a surly tone. "As you and Mrs. Middlemore seem to be of one mind, I'll make a clean breast of it. I thought it was red, and when I made light of it I did it for her sake." He said this so tenderly that Mrs. Middlemore rewarded him with a look of gratitude; but she kept her eyes averted from the kitchen door.