Now, while this was going on, some one came up to the window and looked in. It was the Boy who lived across the street. Mrs. Chinchilla disliked nearly all boys, but she was afraid of this one. He had golden curls and a Fauntleroy collar, and the sweetest lips that ever said prayers, and clean dimpled hands that looked as if they had been made to stroke cats and make them purr. But instead of stroking them he rubbed their fur the wrong way, and hung tin kettles to their tails, and tied handkerchiefs over their heads. When Mrs. Chinchilla saw the Boy she humped her back, so that it looked like a gray mountain, and said, “Sftt!” three times. When the Boy found that she was looking at him, and lashing her tail, and yawning so as to show him her sharp white teeth, he suddenly disappeared from sight. So Mrs. Chinchilla gave the kittens their breakfast, and they cuddled themselves into a round ball, and went fast asleep. They were first rolled so tightly, and then so tied up with their tails, that you couldn't have told whether they were three or six little catkins. When their soft purr-r-r-r, purr-r-r-r had first changed into sleepy little snores, and then died away altogether, Mrs. Chinchilla jumped down out of the window, and went for her morning airing in the back yard. At the same time the druggist passed behind a tall desk to mix some medicine, and the shop was left alone. Just then the Boy (for he hadn't gone away at all; he had just stooped out of sight) rushed in the door quickly, snatched one of the kittens out of the round ball, and ran away with it as fast as he could run. Pretty soon Mrs. Chinchilla came back, and of course she counted the kittens the very first thing. She always did it. To her surprise and fright she found only two instead of three. She knew she couldn't be mistaken. There were five kittens in her last family, and two less in this family; and five kittens less two kittens is three kittens. One chinchilla catkin gone! What should she do? She had once heard a lady say that there were too many cats in the world already, but she had no patience with people who made such wicked speeches. Her kittens had always been so beautiful that they sometimes sold for fifty cents apiece, and none of them had ever been drowned.