“I wouldn’t have given him to just anybody.”

“I know,” said Nicky.

“I might have kept him.  He’s the nicest kitten Jane ever had.”

“I know,” said Nicky.  “It was nice of you.”

“I might want him back again.”

“I—­know.”

Nicky was quiet and serious, almost humble, as if he went in the fear of losing Jerry.  Nobody but Jerry and Dorothy saw Nicky in that mood.

Not that he was really afraid.  Nothing could take Jerry from him.  If Dorothy could have taken him back again she wouldn’t have, not even if she had really wanted him.  Dorothy wasn’t cruel, and she was only ragging.

But certainly he was Jane’s nicest kitten.  Jane was half-Persian, white with untidy tabby patterns on her.  Jerry was black all over.  Whatever attitude he took, his tight, short fur kept the outlines of his figure firm and clear, whether he arched his back and jumped sideways, or rolled himself into a cushion, or squatted with haunches spread and paws doubled in under his breast, or sat bolt upright with his four legs straight like pillars, and his tail curled about his feet.  Jerry’s coat shone like black looking-glass, and the top of his head smelt sweet, like a dove’s breast.

And he had yellow eyes.  Mary-Nanna said they would turn green some day.  But Nicky didn’t believe it.  Mary-Nanna was only ragging.  Jerry’s eyes would always be yellow.

Mr. Parsons declared that Nicky sat for whole hours meditating on Jerry, as if in this way he could make him last longer.

Jerry’s life was wonderful to Nicky.  Once he was so small that his body covered hardly the palm of your hand; you could see his skin; it felt soft and weak through the thin fur, sleeked flat and wet where Jane had licked it.  His eyes were buttoned up tight.  Then they opened.  He crawled feebly on the floor after Jane, or hung on to her little breasts, pressing out the milk with his clever paws.  Then Jerry got older.  Sometimes he went mad and became a bat or a bird, and flew up the drawing-room curtains as if his legs were wings.

Nicky said that Jerry could turn himself into anything he pleased; a hawk, an owl, a dove, a Himalayan bear, a snake, a flying squirrel, a monkey, a rabbit, a panther, and a little black lamb of God.

Jerry was a cat now; he was two years old.

Jerry’s fixed idea seemed to be that he was a very young cat, and that he must be nursed continually, and that nobody but Nicky must nurse him.  Mr. Parsons found that Nicky made surprising progress in his Latin and Greek that year.  What had baffled Mr. Parsons up till now had been Nicky’s incapacity for sitting still.  But he would sit still enough when Jerry was on his knee, pressed tight between the edge of the desk and Nicky’s stomach, so that knowledge entered into Nicky through Jerry when there was no other way.