“’I know not, yea, I know not
       What bliss awaits me there. 
       Di, doo de di di doo de—­’”

Breaking off to suggest:  “Better stay and eat along with me to-day, hadn’t you, Babbie?”

Barbara tried hard not to seem superior.

“Thank you,” she said, “but I guess I can’t.  We’re going to have chicken and lemon jelly.”  Then, remembering her manners, she added:  “We’d be awful glad if you’d have dinner with us, Mr. Winslow.”

Jed shook his head.

“Much obliged,” he drawled, “but if I didn’t eat that mackerel, who would?”

The question was answered promptly.  While Mr. Winslow and his small caller were chatting concerning the former’s dinner, another eager personality was taking a marked interest in a portion of that dinner.  Cherub, the Taylor cat, abroad on a foraging expedition, had scented from his perch upon a nearby fence a delicious and appetizing odor.  Following his nose, literally, Cherub descended from the fence and advanced, sniffing as he came.  The odor was fish, fresh fish.  Cherub’s green eyes blazed, his advance became crafty, strategical, determined.  He crept to the Winslow back step, he looked up through the open door, he saw the mackerel upon its plate on the top of the ice-chest.

“If I didn’t eat that mackerel,” drawled Jed, “who would?”

There was a swoop through the air, a scream from Barbara, a crash—­ two crashes, a momentary glimpse of a brindle cat with a mackerel crosswise in its mouth and the ends dragging on the ground, a rattle of claws on the fence.  Then Jed and his visitor were left to gaze upon a broken plate on the floor, an overturned bowl on top of the ice-chest, and a lumpy rivulet of rice pudding trickling to the floor.

“Oh!  Oh!  Oh!” cried Barbara, wringing her hands in consternation.

Jed surveyed the ruin of the “poor man’s pudding” and gazed thoughtfully at the top of the fence over which the marauder had disappeared.

“Hum,” he mused.  “H-u-u-m. . . .  Well, I did cal’late I could get a meal out of sight pretty fast myself, but—­but—­I ain’t in that critter’s class.”

“But your dinner!” wailed Barbara, almost in tears.  “He’s spoiled all your dinner!  Oh, the bad thing!  I hate that Cherub cat!  I hate him!”

Mr. Winslow rubbed his chin.  “We-e-ll,” he drawled again.  “He does seem to have done what you might call a finished job.  H-u-u-m! . . .  ’Another offensive on the—­er—­no’theast’ard front; all objectives attained.’  That’s the way the newspapers tell such things nowadays, ain’t it? . . .  However, there’s no use cryin’ over spilt—­er—­puddin’.  Lucky there’s eggs and milk aboard the ship.  I shan’t starve, anyhow.”

Barbara was aghast.  “Eggs and milk!” she repeated.  “Is that all you’ve got for Sunday dinner, Mr. Winslow?  Why, that’s awful!”

Jed smiled and began picking up the fragments of the plate.  He went to the closet to get a broom and when he came out again the young lady had vanished.