"However, it is conceded in the family that Phosphor is not a cat
merely: he is a person, and Lucifer is a spirit. Lucifer seldom purrs--I
wonder if that is a characteristic of black cats?" [No; my black cats
fairly roar.] "A little thread of sound, and only now and then, when
very happy and loving, a rich, full strain. But Phosphor purrs like a
windmill, like an electric car, like a tea-kettle, like a whole boiled
dinner. When Phosphor came, Lucifer, six weeks her senior (Phosphor's
excellencies always incline one to say 'she' of him), thought the little
live yellow ball was made only for him to play with, and he cuffed and
tossed him around for all he was worth, licked him all over twenty times
a day, and slept with his arms about him. During those early years
Phosphor never washed himself, Lucifer took such care of him, and they
were a lovely sight in each other's arms asleep. But of late years a
coolness has intervened, and now they never speak as they pass by. They
sometimes go fishing together, Lucifer walking off majestically alone,
always dark, mysterious, reticent, intent on his own affairs, making you
feel that he has a sort of lofty contempt for yours. Sometimes, the mice
depositing a dead fish in the crannies of the rocks, Lucifer appears
with it in the twilight, gleaming silver-white in his jaws, and the
great eyes gleaming like fire-balls above it. Phosphor is, however, a
mighty hunter: mice, rats by the score, chipmunks,--all is game that
comes to his net. He has cleaned out whole colonies of catbirds (for
their insolence), and eaten every golden robin on the island.

"It used to be very pretty to see them, when they were little, as El
Mahdi, the peacock, spread his great tail, dart and spring upon it, and
go whirling round with it as El Mahdi, fairly frantic with the little
demons that had hold of him, went skipping and springing round and
round. But although so fierce a fighter, so inhospitable to every other