young authors for ever. After my publishers declined to issue "The
Witch's Head" in a six-shilling edition, I tried many others without
success, and at length in my folly signed an agreement with a firm since
deceased. Under this document the firm in question agreed to bring out
"Dawn" and "The Witch's Head" in a two-shilling edition, and generously
to remunerate me with a third share in the profits realised, if any. In
return for this concession, I on my part undertook to allow the said
firm to republish any novel that I might write, for a period of five
years from the date of the agreement, in a two-shilling form, and on the
same third-profit terms. Of course, so soon as the success of "King
Solomon's Mines" was established, I received a polite letter from the
publishers in question, asking when they might expect to republish that
romance at two shillings. Then the matter came under the consideration
of lawyers and other skilled persons, with the result that it appeared
that, if the Courts took a strict view of the agreement, ruin stared me
in the face, so far as my literary affairs were concerned. To begin
with, either by accident or design, this artful document was so worded
that, _prima facie_, the contracting publisher had a right to place his
cheap edition on the market whenever it might please him to do so,
subject only to the payment of a third of the profit, to be assessed by
himself, which practically would have meant nothing at all. How could I
expect to dispose of work subject to such a legal "servitude." For five
long years I was a slave to the framer of the "hanging" clause of the
agreement. Things looked black indeed, when, thanks to the diplomacy of
my agent, and to a fortunate change in the _personnel_ of the firm to
which I was bound, I avoided disaster. The fatal agreement was
cancelled, and in consideration of my release I undertook to write two
books upon a moderate royalty. Thus, then, did I escape out of bondage.
To be just, it was my own fault that I should ever have been sold into
it, but authors are proverbially guileless when they are anxious to
publish their books, and a piece of printed paper with a few additions
written in a neat hand looks innocent enough. Now no such misfortunes
need happen, for the Authors' Society is ready and anxious to protect
them from themselves and others, but in those days it did not exist.
[Illustration: THE FARM.]
This is the history of how I drifted into the writing of books. If it
saves one beginner so inexperienced and unfriended as I was in those
days from putting his hand to a "hanging" agreement under any
circumstances whatsoever, it will not have been set out in vain.
The advice that I give to would-be authors, if I may presume to offer
it, is to think for a long while before they enter at all upon a career
so hard and hazardous, but having entered on it, not to be easily cast
down. There are great virtues in perseverance, even though critics sneer
and publishers prove unkind.
TOLD BY THE COLONEL.
XII.
THE CAT'S REVENGE.
BY W. L. ALDEN.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY R. JACK.
-----
We had been discussing the Darwinian hypothesis, and the Colonel had
maintained a profound silence, which was sufficient evidence that he did
not believe in the development of man from the lower animals. Some one,
however, asked him plumply his opinion of Darwinianism, and he
sententiously replied, "Darned nonsense."
[Illustration: "DARNED NONSENSE."]
Feeling that this view of the matter possibly merited expansion, the
Colonel caused his chair to assume its customary oratorical attitude on
its two rear legs, and began to discourse.
"There are some things," he remarked, "which do look as if there might
be a grain of truth in this monkey theory. For instance, when I was in
France I was pretty nearly convinced that the monkey is the connecting
link between man and the Frenchmen, but after all there is no proof of
it. That's what's the matter with Darwinianism. When you produce a man
who can remember that his grandfather was a monkey, or when you show me
a monkey that can produce papers to prove that he is my second cousin,
I'll believe all Darwin said on the subject, but as the thing stands
I've nothing but Darwin's word to prove that men and monkeys are near
relations. So far as I can learn, Darwin didn't know as much about
animals as a man ought to know who undertakes to invent a theory about
them. He never was intimate with dogs, and he never drove an army mule.
He had a sort of bowing acquaintance with monkeys and a few other
animals of no particular standing in the community, but he couldn't even
understand a single animal language. Now, if he had gone to work, and
learned to read and write, and speak the monkey language, as that
American professor that you were just speaking of has done, he might
have been able to give us some really valuable information.
"Do I believe that animals talk? I don't simply believe it, I know it.
When I was a young man I had a good deal to do with animals, and I
learned to understand the cat language just as well as I understood
English. It's an easy language when once you get the hang of it, and
from what I hear of German the two are considerably alike. You look as
if you didn't altogether believe me, though why you should doubt that a
man can learn cat language when the world is full of men that pretend to
have learned German, and nobody calls their word in question, I don't
precisely see.
"Of course, I don't pretend to understand all the cat dialects. For
example, I don't know a word of the Angora dialect, and can only
understand a sentence here and there of the tortoiseshell dialect, but
so far as good, pure standard cat language goes, it's as plain as print
to me to-day, though I haven't paid any attention to it for forty years.
I don't want you to understand that I ever spoke it. I always spoke
English when I was talking with cats. They all understand English as
well as you do. They pick it up just as a child picks up a language from
hearing it spoken.
"Forty years ago I was a young man, and, like most young men, I fancied
that I was in love with a young woman of our town. There isn't the least
doubt in my mind that I should have married her if I had not known the
cat language. She afterwards married a man whom she took away to Africa
with her as a missionary. I knew him well, and he didn't want to go to
Africa. Said he had no call to be a missionary, and that all he wanted
was to live in a Christian country where he could go and talk with the
boys in the bar-room evenings. But his wife carried him off, and it's my
belief that if I had married her she would have made me turn missionary,
or pirate, or anything else that she thought best. I shall never cease
to be grateful to Thomas Aquinas for saving me from that woman.
"This was the way of it. I was living in a little cottage that belonged
to my uncle, and that he let me have rent free on condition that I
should take care of it, and keep the grounds in an attractive state
until he could sell it. I had an old negro housekeeper and two cats. One
of them, Martha Washington by name, was young and handsome, and about as
bright a cat as I ever knew. She had a strong sense of humour, too,
which is unusual with cats, and when something amused her she would
throw back her head and open her mouth wide, and laugh a silent laugh
that was as hearty and rollicking as a Methodist parson's laugh when he
hears a grey-haired joke at a negro minstrel show. Martha was perhaps
the most popular cat in the town, and there was scarcely a minute in the
day when there wasn't some one of her admirers in the back yard. As for
serenades, she had three or four every night that it didn't rain. There
was a quartette club formed by four first-class feline voices, and the
club used to give Martha and me two or three hours of music three times
a week. I used sometimes to find as many as six or seven old boots in
the back yard of a morning that had been contributed by enthusiastic
neighbours. As for society, Martha Washington was at the top of the
heap. There wasn't a more fashionable cat in the whole State of Ohio--I
was living in Ohio at the time--and in spite of it all she was as simple
and unaffected in her ways as if she had been born and bred in a Quaker
meeting-house.
[Illustration: "I HAD AN OLD NEGRO HOUSEKEEPER AND TWO CATS."]
"One afternoon Martha was giving a four o'clock milk on the verandah
next to my room. I always gave her permission to give that sort of
entertainment whenever she wanted to, for the gossip of her friends used
to be very amusing to me. Among the guests that afternoon was
Susan's--that was the young lady I wanted to marry--Maltese cat. Now
this cat had always pretended to be very fond of me, and Susan often
said that her cat never made a mistake in reading character, and that
the cat's approval of me was equivalent to a first-class Sunday-school
certificate of moral character. I didn't care anything about the cat
myself, for somehow I didn't place any confidence in her professions.
There was an expression about her tail which, to my mind, meant that she
was insincere and treacherous. The Maltese cat had finished her milk
when the conversation drifted around to the various mistresses of the
cats, and presently someone spoke of Susan. Then the Maltese began to
say things about Susan that made my blood boil. It was not only what she
said but what she insinuated, and, according to her, Susan was one of
the meanest and most contemptible women in the whole United States. I
stood it as long as I could, and then I got up and said to Martha
Washington, 'I think your Maltese friend is needed at her home, and the
sooner she goes the better if she doesn't want to be helped home with a
club.' That was enough. The Maltese, who was doing up her back fur when
I spoke, stopped, looked at me as if she could tear me into pieces, and
then flounced out of the house without saying a word. I understood that
there was an end to her pretence of friendship for me, and that
henceforth I should have an enemy in Susan's house who might, perhaps,
be able to do me a good deal of harm.
[Illustration: "I USED TO FIND OLD BOOTS IN THE YARD."]
[Illustration: "THE SOONER SHE GOES THE BETTER."]
"The next time I called to see Susan the Maltese was in the room, and
she instantly put up her back and tail and swore at me as if I was a
Chinaman on the look out for material for a stolen dinner. 'What can be
the matter with poor pussy?' said Susan. 'She seems to be so terribly
afraid of you all of a sudden. I hope it doesn't mean that you have been
doing something that she doesn't approve of.' I didn't make any reply to
this insinuation, except to say that the cat might perhaps be going mad,
but this didn't help me any with Susan, who was really angry at the idea
that her cat could be capable of going mad.
[Illustration: "POOR PUSSY'S NERVES ARE THOROUGHLY UPSET."]
"The same sort of thing happened every time I went to the house. The cat
was always in the room, and always expressed in the plainest way the
opinion that I was a thief and a murderer, and an enemy of the
temperance society. When I asked her what she meant to do, she would
give me no reply except a fresh oath, or other bad language. Threats had
no effect on her, for she knew that I could not touch her in Susan's
house, and she didn't intend that I should catch her outside of the
house. Nothing was clearer than that the Maltese was bound to make a
quarrel between me and Susan in revenge for what I had said at Martha's
four o'clock milk.
"Meanwhile Susan began to take the thing very seriously, and hinted that
the cat's opposition to me might be a providential warning against me.
'I never knew her to take such a prejudice against anyone before,' she
said, 'except against that converted Jew who afterwards turned out to be
a burglar, and nearly murdered poor dear Mr. Higby, the Baptist
preacher, the night he broke into Mr. Higby's house and stole all his
hams.' Once when I did manage to give the Maltese a surreptitious kick,
and she yelled as if she was half-killed, Susan said, 'I am really
afraid I shall have to ask you to leave us now. Poor pussy's nerves are
so thoroughly upset that I must devote all my energies to soothing her.
I do hope she is mistaken in her estimate of you.' This was not very
encouraging, and I saw clearly that if the Maltese kept up her
opposition the chances that Susan would marry me were not worth a rush.
"Did I tell you that I had a large grey cat by the name of Thomas
Aquinas? He was in some respects the most remarkable cat I ever met.
Most people considered him rather a dull person, but among cats he was
conceded to have a colossal mind. Cats would come from miles away to ask
his advice about things. I don't mean such trifling matters as his views
on mice-catching--which, by the way, is a thing that has very little
interest for most cats--or his opinion of the best way in which to get a
canary bird through the bars of a cage. They used to consult him on
matters of the highest importance, and the opinions that he used to give
would have laid over those of Benjamin Franklin himself. Why Martha
Washington told me that Thomas Aquinas knew more about bringing up
kittens than the oldest and most experienced feline matron that she had
ever known. As for common sense, Thomas Aquinas was just a solid chunk
of it, as you might say, and I got into the habit of consulting him
whenever I wanted a good, safe, cautious opinion. He would see at a
glance where the trouble was, and would give me advice that no lawyer
could have beaten, no matter how big a fee he might have charged.
"Well! I went home from Susan's house, and I said to Thomas Aquinas,
'Thomas,' for he was one of those cats that you would no more have
called 'Tom' than you would call Mr. Gladstone 'Bill'--'Thomas,' I said,
'I want you to come with me to Miss Susan's and tell that Maltese beast
that if she doesn't quit her practice of swearing at me whenever I come
into the room it will be the worse for her.'
"'That's easy enough,' said Thomas. 'I know one or two little things
about that cat that would not do to be told, and she knows that I know
them. Never you fear but that I can shut her up in a moment. I heard
that she was going about bragging that she would get square with you for
something you said to her one day, but I didn't feel called upon to
interfere without your express approval.'
"The next day Thomas and I strolled over to Susan's, and, as luck would
have it, we were shown into her reception room before she came down
stairs. The Maltese cat was in the room, and began her usual game of
being filled with horror at the sight of such a hardened wretch as
myself. Of course, Thomas Aquinas took it up at once, and the two had a
pretty hot argument. Now Thomas, in spite of his colossal mind, was a
quick-tempered cat, and he was remarkably free spoken when he was
roused. One word led to another, and presently the Maltese flew at
Thomas, and for about two minutes that room was so thick with fur that
you could hardly see the fight. Of course, there could have been only
one end to the affair. My cat weighed twice what the Maltese weighed,
and after a few rounds he had her by the neck, and never let go until he
had killed her. I was just saying 'Hooray! Thomas!' when Susan came into
the room.
[Illustration: "SUSAN CAME INTO THE ROOM."]
"I pass over what she said. Its general sense was that a man who
encouraged dumb animals to fight, and who brought a great savage brute
into her house to kill her sweet little pussy in her own parlour, wasn't
fit to live. She would listen to no explanations, and when I said that
Thomas had called at my request to reason with the Maltese about her
unkind conduct towards me, Susan said that my attempt to turn an
infamous outrage into a stupid joke made the matter all the worse, and
that she must insist that I and my prize fighting beast should leave her
house at once and never enter it again.
"So you see that if it had not been that I understood what the Maltese
cat said at Martha Washington's milk party, I should probably never have
quarrelled with either Susan or her cat, and should now have been a
missionary in Central Africa, if I hadn't blown my brains out, or taken
to drink. I have often thought that the man Susan did marry might have
been saved if he had known the cat language in time, and had made the
acquaintance of the Maltese."
The Colonel paused, and presently I asked him if he really expected us
to believe his story. "Why not?" he replied. "It isn't any stiffer than
Darwin's yarn about our being descended from monkeys. You believe that
on the word of a man you never saw, and I expect you to believe my story
that I understand the cat language on my unsupported word. Perhaps the
story is a little tough, but if you are going in for science you
shouldn't let your credulity be backed down by any story."
[Illustration: IDLERS]
[Illustration: J. L. Toole "Walker. London" "Oh Sarah I'm slipping"]
"LIONS IN THEIR DENS."
J. L. TOOLE.
BY RAYMOND BLATHWAYT.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY LOUIS GUNNIS.
(_Photographs by Messrs. Fradelle & Young, and Falk, of Sydney._)
[Illustration: MR. TOOLE IN "THE STEEPLECHASE."]
[Illustration: MR. TOOLE'S HOUSE.]
[Illustration: "I CAN'T LAY MY HANDS ON 'EM."]