sitting on the mat."

Beale's narrative style closely resembled that of a certain book I had
read in my infancy. I wish I could remember its title. It was a well-
written book.

"Yes, Beale, yes?" said Mrs. Ukridge. "Oh, do go on."

" 'Hullo, puss,' I says to him, 'and 'ow are /you/, sir?' 'Be
careful,' says the missis. ' 'E's that timid,' she says, 'you wouldn't
believe,' she says. ' 'E's only just settled down, as you may say,'
she says. 'Ho, don't you fret,' I says to her, ' 'im and me
understands each other. 'Im and me,' I says, 'is old friends. 'E's my
dear old pal, Corporal Banks.' She grinned at that, ma'am, Corporal
Banks being a man we'd 'ad many a 'earty laugh at in the old days. 'E
was, in a manner of speaking, a joke between us."

"Oh, do--go--on, Beale. What has happened to Edwin?"

The Hired Retainer proceeded in calm, even tones.

"We was talking there, ma'am, when Bob, what had followed me unknown,
trotted in. When the cat ketched sight of 'im sniffing about, there
was such a spitting and swearing as you never 'eard; and blowed," said
Mr. Beale amusedly, "blowed if the old cat didn't give one jump, and
move in quick time up the chimney, where 'e now remains, paying no
'eed to the missis' attempts to get him down again."

Sensation, as they say in the reports.