The sixteen boys dug, and Flannery, in desperation, dug, but a square mile is a large plot of ground to dig over.  No one, having observed that cat on the morning when Timmy planted it, would have believed it could be put in any place where it could not be instantly found again.  It had seemed like a cat that would advertise itself.  But that is just like a cat; it is always around when it is n’t needed, and when it is needed it can’t be found.  Before the afternoon was half over the boys had tired of digging for a dead cat and had gone away, but Flannery kept at it until the sun went down.  Then he looked to see how much of the plot was left to dig up.  It was nearly all left.  As he washed his hands before going to his boarding-house a messenger-boy handed him a telegram.  Flannery tore it open with misgivings.

“Cat has not arrived.  Must come on night train.  Can accept no excuse,” it read.

Flannery folded the telegram carefully and put it in his hip pocket.  He washed his hands with more deliberate care than he had ever spent on them.  He adjusted his coat most carefully on his back, and then walked with dignity to his boarding-house.  He knew what would happen.  There would be an inspector out from the head office in the morning.  Flannery would probably have to look for a new job.

In the morning he was up early, but he was still dignified.  He did not put on his uniform, but wore his holiday clothes, with the black tie with the red dots.  An inspector is a hard man to face, but a man in his best clothes has more of a show against him.  Flannery came to the office the back way; there was a possibility of the inspector’s being already at the front door.  As he crossed the filled-in meadows he poked unhopefully at the soil here and there, but nothing came of it.  But suddenly his eyes lighted on a figure that he knew, just turning out of the alley three buildings from the office.  It was Timmy!

Flannery had no chance at all.  He ran, but how can a man run in his best clothes across soft, new soil when he is getting a bit too stout?  And Timmy had seen him first.  When Flannery reached the corner of the alley Timmy was gone, and with a sigh that was partly regret and partly breathlessness from his run Flannery turned into the main street.  There was the inspector, sure enough, standing on the curb.  Flannery had lost some of his dignity, but he made up for it in anger.  He more than made up for it in the heat he had run himself into.  He was red in the face.  He met the inspector with a glare of anger.

“There be th’ key, if ‘tis that ye’re wantin’, an’ ye may take it an’ welcome, fer no more will I be ixpriss agint fer a company that sinds long-haired cats dead in a box an’ orders me t’ kape thim throo th’ hot weather fer a fireside companion an’ ready riferince av perfumery.  How t’ feed an’ water dead cats av th’ long-haired kind I may not know, an’ how t’ live with dead cats I may not know, but whin t’ bury dead cats I do know, an’ there be plinty av other jobs where a man is not ordered t’ dig up forty-siven acres t’ find a cat that was buried none too soon at that!”