"I screamed so loudly that my father came up from his study.

"I remember that he took me in his arms.

"'It's only a big sort of pussy, Poff,' he said. 'FELIS TIGRIS.
FELIS, you know, means cat.'

"But I knew better. I was in no mood then for my father's
insatiable pedagoguery.

"'And my little son mustn't be a coward.' . . .

"After that I understood I must keep silence and bear my tigers
alone.

"For years the thought of that tiger's immensity haunted my mind.
In my dreams I cowered before it a thousand times; in the dusk it
rarely failed me. On the landing on my way to bed there was a patch
of darkness beyond a chest that became a lurking horror for me, and
sometimes the door of my father's bedroom would stand open and there
was a long buff and crimson-striped shape, by day indeed an ottoman,
but by night--. Could an ottoman crouch and stir in the flicker of
a passing candle? Could an ottoman come after you noiselessly, and
so close that you could not even turn round upon it? No!"



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