"May I sit here?" he asked. "You see, my pussy cat holds me, and as I
shall tell you about a cat, she gives the touch of local color."

And then he began, his right hand resting on the gray cat's head, his
left upon his knee.

He used no gestures, yet as he went on, the room became still with the
stillness of a captured audience. Here was no stumbling elocution, but a
controlled and perfect method, backed by a voice which soared and sang
and throbbed and thrilled--the voice either of a great orator, or of a
great actor.

The story that he told was of Whittington and his cat. But it was not
the old nursery rhyme. He gave it as it is written by one of England's
younger poets. Since he lacked the time for it all, he sketched the
theme, rounding it out here and there with a verse--and it seemed to Mary
that, as he spoke, all the bells of London boomed!

"'_Flos Mercatorum_,' moaned the bell of All Hallowes,
'There was he an orphan, O, a little lad, alone!'
'Then we all sang,' echoed happy St. Saviour's,
'Called him and lured him, and made him our own.'"

And now they saw the little lad stealing toward the big city, saw all the
color and glow as he entered upon its enchantment, saw his meeting with
the green-gowned Alice, saw him cold and hungry, faint and footsore, saw
him aswoon on a door-step.

"'Alice,' roared a voice, and then, O like a lilied angel,