“He was a seafaring man,” replied Jephson.  “I met him on a Hampstead tram, and we discussed the subject of animal sagacity.

“‘Yes, sir,’ he said, ’monkeys is cute.  I’ve come across monkeys as could give points to one or two lubbers I’ve sailed under; and elephants is pretty spry, if you can believe all that’s told of ’em.  I’ve heard some tall tales about elephants.  And, of course, dogs has their heads screwed on all right:  I don’t say as they ain’t.  But what I do say is:  that for straightfor’ard, level-headed reasoning, give me cats.  You see, sir, a dog, he thinks a powerful deal of a man—­never was such a cute thing as a man, in a dog’s opinion; and he takes good care that everybody knows it.  Naturally enough, we says a dog is the most intellectual animal there is.  Now a cat, she’s got her own opinion about human beings.  She don’t say much, but you can tell enough to make you anxious not to hear the whole of it.  The consequence is, we says a cat’s got no intelligence.  That’s where we let our prejudice steer our judgment wrong.  In a matter of plain common sense, there ain’t a cat living as couldn’t take the lee side of a dog and fly round him.  Now, have you ever noticed a dog at the end of a chain, trying to kill a cat as is sitting washing her face three-quarters of an inch out of his reach?  Of course you have.  Well, who’s got the sense out of those two?  The cat knows that it ain’t in the nature of steel chains to stretch.  The dog, who ought, you’d think, to know a durned sight more about ’em than she does, is sure they will if you only bark loud enough.

“’Then again, have you ever been made mad by cats screeching in the night, and jumped out of bed and opened the window and yelled at them?  Did they ever budge an inch for that, though you shrieked loud enough to skeer the dead, and waved your arms about like a man in a play?  Not they.  They’ve turned and looked at you, that’s all.  “Yell away, old man,” they’ve said, “we like to hear you:  the more the merrier.”  Then what have you done?  Why, you’ve snatched up a hair-brush, or a boot, or a candlestick, and made as if you’d throw it at them.  They’ve seen your attitude, they’ve seen the thing in your hand, but they ain’t moved a point.  They knew as you weren’t going to chuck valuable property out of window with the chance of getting it lost or spoiled.  They’ve got sense themselves, and they give you credit for having some.  If you don’t believe that’s the reason, you try showing them a lump of coal, or half a brick, next time—­something as they know you will throw.  Before you’re ready to heave it, there won’t be a cat within aim.

“’Then as to judgment and knowledge of the world, why dogs are babies to ‘em.  Have you ever tried telling a yarn before a cat, sir?’

“I replied that cats had often been present during anecdotal recitals of mine, but that, hitherto, I had paid no particular attention to their demeanour.