Cook said, "I wish you would come downstairs and see how strangely Kitty
behaves as soon as I open the cupboard. There is nothing in it but the
wood; I turned it all out to see what might be the reason--not even a
mousehole can I find." Some days previously cook had told me that
nothing could induce Kitty to sleep in his basket, and one day he would
not eat any food in the kitchen, and his meals had to be given him
outside. So I went down to please cook. Kitty was picked up, and while
cook petted and stroked him, she knelt down and opened the cupboard.
Kitty, stretching his neck and looking with big, frightened eyes into
the cupboard's corner, suddenly turned round; struggling out of cook's
hold and rushing over her shoulder, he flew out of the kitchen. Getting
up, Cook said: "That's always what he does, just as if he was seeing
something horrible!"

Next day I encouraged cook to talk of Ruff, the former black cat, which
had been a great favourite of hers, and which she had been nursing when
he was dying. "Oh, poor thing, when he was ill, he would creep into dark
corners, so I put him in his basket into the cupboard, making it very
comfortable for him, and there he died"--pointing to the very corner
which caused such horror to Kitty.


"RÜGEN."


Letter 5


_Captain Humphries's Story--A Materialized Cat_