The cat was better next morning, but George Barstow had ’ad such a fright about it ’e wouldn’t let it go out of ’is sight, and Joe Clark began to think that ’e would ’ave to wait longer for that property than ’e had thought, arter all.  To ’ear ‘im talk anybody’d ha’ thought that ’e loved that cat.  We didn’t pay much attention to it up at the Cauliflower ’ere, except maybe to wink at ’im—­a thing he couldn’t a bear—­but at ‘ome, o’ course, his young ’uns thought as everything he said was Gospel; and one day, coming ’ome from work, as he was passing George Barstow’s he was paid out for his deceitfulness.

“I’ve wronged you, Joe Clark,” ses George Barstow, coming to the door, “and I’m sorry for it.”

“Oh!” ses Joe, staring.

“Give that to your little Jimmy,” ses George Barstow, giving ’im a shilling.  “I’ve give ’im one, but I thought arterwards it wasn’t enough.”

“What for?” ses Joe, staring at ’im agin.

“For bringing my cat ’ome,” ses George Barstow. “’Ow it got out I can’t think, but I lost it for three hours, and I’d about given it up when your little Jimmy brought it to me in ’is arms.  He’s a fine little chap and ’e does you credit.”

Joe Clark tried to speak, but he couldn’t get a word out, and Henery Walker, wot ’ad just come up and ’eard wot passed, took hold of ’is arm and helped ’im home.  He walked like a man in a dream, but arf-way he stopped and cut a stick from the hedge to take ’ome to little Jimmy.  He said the boy ’ad been asking him for a stick for some time, but up till then ’e’d always forgotten it.

At the end o’ the fust year that cat was still alive, to everybody’s surprise; but George Barstow took such care of it ’e never let it out of ’is sight.  Every time ’e went out he took it with ’im in a hamper, and, to prevent its being pisoned, he paid Isaac Sawyer, who ’ad the biggest family in Claybury, sixpence a week to let one of ’is boys taste its milk before it had it.

The second year it was ill twice, but the horse-doctor that George Barstow got for it said that it was as ’ard as nails, and with care it might live to be twenty.  He said that it wanted more fresh air and exercise; but when he ’eard ’ow George Barstow come by it he said that p’r’aps it would live longer indoors arter all.

At last one day, when George Barstow ‘ad been living on the fat o’ the land for nearly three years, that cat got out agin.  George ’ad raised the front-room winder two or three inches to throw something outside, and, afore he knew wot was ’appening, the cat was out-side and going up the road about twenty miles an hour.

George Barstow went arter it, but he might as well ha’ tried to catch the wind.  The cat was arf wild with joy at getting out agin, and he couldn’t get within arf a mile of it.

He stayed out all day without food or drink, follering it about until it came on dark, and then, o’ course, he lost sight of it, and, hoping against ’ope that it would come home for its food, he went ’ome and waited for it.  He sat up all night dozing in a chair in the front room with the door left open, but it was all no use; and arter thinking for a long time wot was best to do, he went out and told some o’ the folks it was lost and offered a reward of five pounds for it.