Once, when we happened to be in London—­where she feels, however, a good deal safer than in the country—­we had a real alarm, and Mrs. B., since I was suffering from a quinsy, contracted mainly by my being sent about the house o’ nights in the usual scanty drapery, had to be sworn in as her own special constable.

“Henry, Henry!” she whispered upon this occasion, “there’s a dreadful cat in the room.”

“Pooh, pooh!” I gasped; “it’s only in the street; I’ve heard the wretches.  Perhaps they are on the tiles.”

“No, Henry.  There, I don’t want you to talk, since it makes you cough; only listen to me.  What am I to do, Henry?  I’ll stake my existence that there’s a——­ Ugh, what’s that?”

And, indeed, some heavy body did there and then jump upon our bed, and off again at my wife’s interjection, with extreme agility.  I thought Mrs. B. would have had a fit, but she didn’t.  She told me, dear soul, upon no account to venture into the cold with my bad throat.  She would turn out the beast herself, single-handed.  We arranged that she was to take hold of my fingers, and retain them, until she reached the fireplace, where she would find a shovel or other offensive weapon fit for the occasion.  During the progress of this expedition, however, so terrible a caterwauling broke forth, as it seemed, from the immediate neighbourhood of the fender, that my disconcerted helpmate made a most precipitate retreat.  She managed after this mishap to procure a light, and by a circuitous route, constructed of tables and chairs, to avoid stepping upon the floor, Mrs. B. obtained the desired weapon.  It was then much better than a play to behold that heroic woman defying grimalkin from her eminence, and to listen to the changeful dialogue which ensued between herself and that far from dumb, though inarticulately speaking animal.

“Puss, puss, pussy—­poor pussy.”

“Miau, miau, miau,” was the linked shrillness, long drawn out, of the feline reply.

“Poor old puss, then, was it ill?  Puss, puss.  Henry, the horrid beast is going to fly at me!  Whist, whist, cat.”

“Ps-s-s-s. ps-s-s-s, miau; ps-s-s-s-s-s-s-s,” replied the other, in a voice like fat in the fire.

“My dear love,” cried I, almost suffocated with a combination of laughter and quinsy; “you have never opened the door; where is the poor thing to run to?”

Mrs. B. had all this time been exciting the bewildered animal to frenzy by her conversation and shovel, without giving it the opportunity to escape, which, as soon as offered, it took advantage of with an expression of savage impatience partaking very closely indeed of the character of an oath.