keep it?' inquired his companion. 'Oh,' replied he, 'I will keep
it under a little pan till I can get a house made for it.' He
then, holding me by the skin at the back of my neck, ran with me
into the kitchen to fetch a pan. Here I was not only threatened
with death by three or four of the servants, who all blamed Master
Peter for keeping me; but likewise two or three cats came round
him, rubbing themselves backward and forward against his legs, and
then standing upon their hind feet to endeavour to make themselves
high enough to reach me. At last, taking a pan in his hand, he
returned to his brother with one of the cats following him.
Immediately upon our entrance, the boy exclaimed, 'Oh, now I know
what I will do: I will tie a piece of string to its tail, and
teach the cat to jump for it.' No sooner did this thought present
itself than it was put into practice, and I again was obliged to
sustain the shocking sight of a brother put to the torture. I, in
the mean time, was placed upon the table, with a pan put over me,
in which there was a crack, so that I could see as well as hear
all that passed: and from this place it was that I beheld my
beloved Brighteyes suspended at one end of a string by his tail;
one while swinging backward and forward, at another pulled up and
down, then suffered to feel his feet on the ground, and again
suddenly snatched up as the cat advanced, then twisted round and
round as fast as possible at the full length of the string: in
short, it is impossible to describe all his sufferings of body, or
my anguish of mind. At length a most dreadful conclusion was put
to them, by the entrance of a gentleman booted and spurred, with a
whip in his hand. 'What in the world, Charles!' said he, as he
came in, 'are you about? What have you got there?' 'Only a
mouse, sir,' replied the boy. 'He is teaching the cat to jump,
sir,' said Peter, 'that is all.'