Now, in the eighty-thousand-dollar cottage black sorrow reigned
throughout the night. There were tears and linguistic prayers. There
were tinklings of little bells, while humans called shrilly to
vulgar officials along the wires. From a mass of incoherence the
officials learned that some evil-hearted ruffian had entered the
thirty-thousand-dollar garden and had stolen a priceless cat.

Thus the outer world went hunting. So great was its zeal--so great was
the offer of reward--that it captured every cat in town, with the one
exception, of course, of Omar Ben Sufi. This particular hero was found
next morning, asleep, in the geranium-bed; so they bore him in, while
weepings burst forth afresh. And well they might.

Poor Omar Ben was a sight to awaken pity, even in the stoniest of hearts.
The number of his hairs could be counted, almost, by plus and minus
tufts; one eye was closed; his splendid tail was bent in several angles
unrecognized by the rules of art, and he smelled of the outer
world--horribly.

His mistress expressed her grief in a noiseless, refined whimper of
despair; the French maid shrieked, and called on Heaven to witness the
devastation of her every hope; but the master--who had lived, in spite of
his Wall Street training--laughed.

"Nonsense!" said he. "You are squandering your sympathies upon a
shameless prodigal. The beast has had the time of his life, by George!"

"Oh, Charles, how _can_ you?" wailed the mistress of the priceless cat.
"Can't you see how the precious child is suffering?"