and found it almost impossible to walk with it. But a few words of
praise and encouragement changed all that.

"Oh, what a pretty Pomp he is now!" exclaimed one and another, until he
sat up coyly and cocked his head one side as if to say:--

"Oh, now, do you really think I look pretty?" and after a few more
assurances he got down and strutted as proudly as any peacock; much to
the discomfiture of the kitten, who wanted to play with him. And now he
will cross the yard any time to have one of those collars on.

But Thomas Erastus is the prince of our cats to-day. He weighs seventeen
pounds, and is a soft, grayish-maltese with white paws and breast. One
Saturday night ten years ago, as we were partaking of our regular Boston
baked beans, I heard a faint mew. Looking down I saw beside me the
thinnest kitten I ever beheld. The Irish girl who presided over our
fortunes at the time used to place the palms of her hands together and
say of Thomas's appearance, "Why, mum, the two sides of 'im were just
like that." I picked him up, and he crawled pathetically into my neck
and cuddled down.

"There," said a friend who was sitting opposite, "he's fixed himself
now. You'll keep him."

"No, I shall not," I said, "but I will feed him a few days and give him
to my cousin." Inside half an hour, however, Thomas Erastus had assumed
the paternal air toward us that soon made us fear to lose him. Living
without Thomas now would be like a young girl's going out without a
chaperone. After that first half-hour, when he had been fed, he chased
every foreign cat off the premises, and assumed the part of a watch-dog.