“Then I tried the ‘Patent Incombustible’ roofing, because the man said it would not only keep out the rain, but it was perfectly fireproof.  A week after it was on, Butterwick’s stable caught fire and flung up a great many sparks.  All the houses in the neighborhood, however, escaped—­all except mine.  My roof was in flames before the stable was done burning; and when the firemen had put it out, they got to fighting on my front stairs, with the result that the banister was broken to splinters, a two-inch stream was played into the parlor for fifteen minutes, and Chief Engineer Johnson bled all over our best carpet.

“I have the ‘Impervious Cement Roof’ on now, and it seems to do well enough, excepting that it isn’t impervious.  It lets in the water at eight different places; and whenever there is a shower, I have to rush my family out on the roof to shelter it with umbrellas.  I fully expect it will explode some night, or do some other deadly and infamous thing.  I am going to put the house up at auction and live in a circus tent.”

* * * * *

They had a big excitement over at Potts’ the other day about their cat.  They heard the cat howling and screeching somewhere around the house for two or three days, but they couldn’t find her.  Potts used to get up at night, fairly maddened with the noise, and heave things out the back window at random, hoping to hit her and discourage her.  But she never seemed to mind them; and although eventually he fired off pretty nearly every movable thing in the house excepting the piano, she continued to shriek and scream in a manner that was simply appalling.  At last, one day, Potts made a critical examination of the premises, and, guided by the noise, he finally located the cat in the tin waterspout which descends the north wall of the house.  He thinks the cat must have been skylarking on the roof some dark night and accidentally tumbled into the spout.

Potts tried to shake her down by hammering on the spout with a stick; but the more he pounded, the louder she yelled, and the two noises roused the entire neighborhood and attracted the attention of the police.  Then he procured a clothes-prop; and ascending to the roof, he endeavored to push the animal out.  But the stick was not long enough to reach her.  All it was good for was to make her howl more loudly; and it did that.  At last Potts concluded to take the spout down and coax the cat out.  When he got it on the ground, he peeped in at the end, and he could see the animal’s eyes shining like balls of fire far back in the darkness of the hole.  After shaking her up for a while without inducing her to move, he made up his mind that she must be jammed in the pipe and unable to budge.  He wanted to cut the pipe open, but Butterwick said it would be a pity to spoil such a good spout for a mere cat.

So Potts finally determined to blow her out with powder.  He procured a small charge; and pushing it pretty well in with a stick, he “tamped” the end of the spout with clay and lighted the slow-match.  Two minutes later there was an explosion, and the tamping-clay flew out and struck Butterwick with some violence in the ribs, curling him all up on the grass by the pump.  When he recovered his breath, he got up and said,