not been tormented by the strange cat the night before.

"What cat?" he asked, abruptly; "what the plague do you mean?"

"Why, I certainly did see a cat go into your room last night," I resumed.

"Hey, and what if you did--though I fancy you dreamed it--I'm not afraid
of a cat; are you?" he interrupted, tartly.

At this moment there came a low growling mew from the closet which opened
from the room in which we sat.

"Talk of the devil," said I, pointing towards the closet. My companion,
without any exact change of expression, looked, I thought, somehow
still more sinister and lowering; and I felt for a moment a sort of
superstitious misgiving, which made the rest of the sentence die away
on my lips.

Perhaps Mr. Smith perceived this, for he said, in a tone calculated to
reassure me--

"Well, sir, I think I am bound to tell you that I like my apartments very
well; they suit me, and I shall probably be your tenant for much longer
than at first you anticipated."

I expressed my gratification.

He then began to talk, something in the strain in which he had spoken of
his own peculiarities of habit and thinking upon the previous evening. He
disposed of all classes and denominations of superstition with an easy