policeman on the step behind had disappeared at once, and the driver now got down from his perch and, coming round, began to gossip with her.  I saw her slink her eyes and smile at him, and he smiled back; a large man; not unkindly.  Then he returned to his horses, and she stayed as before, with her forehead against the bars, just staring out.  Watching her like that, unseen, I seemed to be able to see right through that tight-lipped, lynx-eyed mask.  I seemed to know that little creature through and through, as one knows anything that one surprises off its guard, sunk in its most private moods.  I seemed to see her little restless, furtive, utterly unmoral soul, so stripped of all defence, as if she had taken it from her heart and handed it out to me.  I saw that she was one of those whose hands slip as indifferently into others’ pockets as into their own; incapable of fidelity, and incapable of trusting; quick as cats, and as devoid of application; ready to scratch, ready to purr, ready to scratch again; quick to change, and secretly as unchangeable as a little pebble.  And I thought:  “Here we are, taking her to the Zoo (by no means for the first time, if demeanour be any guide), and we shall put her in a cage, and make her sew, and give her good books which she will not read; and she will sew, and walk up and down, until we let her out; then she will return to her old haunts, and at once go prowling and do exactly the same again, what ever it was, until we catch her and lock her up once more.  And in this way we shall go on purifying Society until she dies.”  And I thought:  If indeed she had been created cat in body as well as in soul, we should not have treated her thus, but should have said:  ’Go on, little cat, you scratch us sometimes, you steal often, you are as sensual as the night.  All this we cannot help.  It is your nature.  So were you made—­we know you cannot change—­you amuse us!  Go on, little cat!’ Would it not then be better, and less savoury of humbug if we said the same to her whose cat-soul has chanced into this human shape?  For assuredly she will but pilfer, and scratch a little, and be mildly vicious, in her little life, and do no desperate harm, having but poor capacity for evil behind that petty, thin-upped mask.  What is the good of all this padlock business for such as she; are we not making mountains out of her mole hills?  Where is our sense of proportion, and our sense of humour?  Why try to alter the make and shape of Nature with our petty chisels?  Or, if we must take care of her, to save ourselves, in the name of Heaven let us do it in a better way than this!  And suddenly I remembered that I was a Grand Juryman, a purifier of Society, who had brought her bill in true; and, that I might not think these thoughts unworthy of a good citizen, I turned my eyes away from her and took up my list of indictments.  Yes, there she was, at least so I decided:  Number 42, “Pilson, Jenny:  Larceny, pocket-picking.”