There certainly was no harmony in these mounting wails. The
principle motif seemed to be furnished by the cat that had first
voiced his complaint. But now, as Janice plunged down the stairs
after Olga, the thin, high scream of the initial feline chorister
was crossed, in warp and woof, by basset strains.

The sounds rose and fell, as though proceeding from cats in
torment--an agonizing oratorio like nothing Janice had ever heard
before. She screamed to the Swedish girl, but her voice was
drowned by the caterwauling in the back kitchen. Olga wrenched
open the door. Janice, arriving to look over her shoulder at the
very moment she did so, saw the back kitchen practically filled
with cats.

When one cat loses its temper it seems as though every other cat
within hearing gets excited. In the corners, out of the way of
the battlefield, kittens and tabbies were rolling and playing
upon the dried twigs and leaves that Janice knew must be catnip
that Arlo Junior had flung upon the floor to bait the cats into
the kitchen. But the cats in the middle of the room were
preparing for the representation of a busy day at Donnebrook
Fair.

"Them cats! In de clean kitchen what I scrubbed last night only
I bane kill them cats!" And there was not a cat in the lot as
mad as Olga Cedarstrom.

There was a hod of coal beside her. Olga seized the good-sized
lumps of stove coal, one after another, and began volleying with