PRESENTLY he said: “What a beauty this is! and here’s another!”

“And no doubt,” said I, “many of the cats you have seen before would be quite as beautiful if they were as well cared for, or at least cared for at all; generally they are driven about and ill-fed, and often ill-used, simply for the reason that they are cats, and for no other. Yet I feel a great pleasure in telling you the show would have been much larger were it not for the difficulty of inducing the owners to send their pets from home, though you see the great care that is taken of them.”

“Well, I had no idea there was such a variety of form, size, and colour,” said my friend, and departed.

A few months after, I called on him; he was at luncheon, with two cats on a chair beside him — pets I should say, from their appearance.