Psmith waved a hand towards the rocking-chair. "That," he said, "is
Comrade Windsor. To your right is Comrade Jackson, England's
favourite son. I am Psmith."

The visitor blinked furtively, and whistled another tune. As he
looked round the room, his eye fell on the cat. His face lit up.

"Say!" he said, stepping forward, and touching the cat's collar,
"mine, mister."

"Are you Bat Jarvis?" asked Windsor with interest.

"Sure," said the visitor, not without a touch of complacency, as of
a monarch abandoning his incognito.

For Mr. Jarvis was a celebrity.

By profession he was a dealer in animals, birds, and snakes. He had
a fancier's shop in Groome street, in the heart of the Bowery. This
was on the ground-floor. His living abode was in the upper story of
that house, and it was there that he kept the twenty-three cats
whose necks were adorned with leather collars, and whose numbers
had so recently been reduced to twenty-two. But it was not the fact
that he possessed twenty-three cats with leather collars that made
Mr. Jarvis a celebrity.

A man may win a purely local reputation, if only for eccentricity,
by such means. But Mr. Jarvis's reputation was far from being
purely local. Broadway knew him, and the Tenderloin. Tammany Hall