“Is it dead?” ses Joe Clark, ’ardly able to speak.

“’Ow should I know?” ses Bob; “that’s wot I’ve got to try and find out.  That’s wot you gave me your furniture for, and wot George Barstow gave me the fifteen pounds for, ain’t it?  Now, don’t you stop me now, ’cos I’m goin’ to begin looking.”

He started looking there and then, and for the next two or three days George Barstow and Joe Clark see ’im walking up and down with his ’ands in ’is pockets looking over garden fences and calling “Puss.”  He asked everybody ’e see whether they ’ad seen a white cat with one blue eye and one yaller one, and every time ’e came into the Cauliflower he put his ’ead over the bar and called “Puss,” ’cos, as ’e said, it was as likely to be there as anywhere else.

It was about a week after the cat ’ad disappeared that George Barstow was standing at ’is door talking to Joe Clark, who was saying the cat must be dead and ’e wanted ’is property, when he sees a man coming up the road carrying a basket stop and speak to Bill Chambers.  Just as ’e got near them an awful “miaow” come from the basket and George Barstow and Joe Clark started as if they’d been shot.

“He’s found it?” shouts Bill Chambers, pointing to the man.

“It’s been living with me over at Ling for a week pretty nearly,” ses the man.  “I tried to drive it away several times, not knowing that there was fifteen pounds offered for it.”

George Barstow tried to take ’old of the basket.

“I want that fifteen pounds fust,” ses the man.

“That’s on’y right and fair, George,” ses Bob Pretty, who ’ad just come up.  “You’ve got all the luck, mate.  We’ve been hunting ’igh and low for that cat for a week.”

Then George Barstow tried to explain to the man and call Bob Pretty names at the same time; but it was all no good.  The man said it ’ad nothing to do with ’im wot he ’ad paid to Bob Pretty; and at last they fetched Policeman White over from Cudford, and George Barstow signed a paper to pay five shillings a week till the reward was paid.

George Barstow ’ad the cat for five years arter that, but he never let it get away agin.  They got to like each other in time and died within a fortnight of each other, so that Joe Clark got ’is property arter all.