The Selfish Cat
A tortoiseshell laments his hard life among heartless humans.
1899
Introduction
A tortoiseshell cat is chatting with a rather skinny grey cat. It is so difficult, he says plaintively, for a cat to find a proper home.
“IT’S not every trade that deserves to have a cat about the place” said the tortoiseshell cat to the grey one.
“My first master was a shoemaker, and I lived with him happily enough, until one morning in winter, when I found the wicked man sewing strips of — let me whisper — cat’s fur on a pair of lady’s slippers!
“My next home was in a garret, with a half-starved musician who made violins. It was amusing to live with a man who could make things with voices like my own. But one day I learned that the strings of the violins were taken from the bodies of dead cats.* No wonder the voices were like my brothers’ voices.
“So next day, after the cat’s-meat man had called, I walked quietly out, and never saw that bad violin-maker again.
“I was picked up in the street by a child, who took me home to her mother's house.”
Actually, ‘catgut’ was really taken from a sheep. Nowadays, these strings are often made of synthetic materials.