William Again (10 page)

‘Cats! Who’d call cats an animal? They aren’t int’restin’, are they? Who ever found cats int’restin’? They don’t follow you like dogs, do they?
They haven’t int’restin’ habits like insecks – oh, I mus’ say they’re very int’restin’!’

He saw Ethel and his mother gathering breath to speak. His father had retired behind a paper.

He hastily went out, shutting the door firmly behind him.

‘Cats!’
he remarked, contemptuously, to the empty hall.

William was walking slowly along the road, with his hands in his pockets, whistling. He felt at peace with all the world. He had a half-crown in his pocket. It would soon be Christmas. He was
going to have a bicycle for Christmas. Ethel had insisted on his having a bicycle for Christmas, not for love of William, but because William’s secret experiments with her bicycle had such
dire results.

‘He’ll only smash it up, if he has one, dear,’ his mother had said.

‘Well, he’ll only smash up mine, if he doesn’t,’ Ethel had replied.

So William was going to have a bicycle and a mouth organ and pocket-compass in addition, of course, to the strange things always sent as presents by distant aunts and uncles. Those did not count
– pencil-boxes, and storybooks about curious, exemplary boys, and boxes of crayons and pens and things. They didn’t count.

Anyway, a bicycle was a bicycle. He wanted to be able to take a bicycle right to pieces and put it together again. He’d never been able to have a really good try at Ethel’s. She made
such a fuss. He was thinking about this, with a faint smile on his face, when he observed a man coming along with a covered basket in his hands. It was Mr Romford. William looked at him coldly. He
had no hopes of a Christmas present from Mr Romford but Mr Romford stopped.

‘Are you going home, William?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ said William ungraciously.

‘Would you mind taking this to your sister? It’s a present I am giving her for Christmas. Don’t open the lid. It’s a very valuable white cat.’

William took it. Something was moving about inside.

‘It’s in a highly nervous state,’ went on the donor; ‘I shouldn’t look at it if I were you.’

‘All right,’ said William, coldly.

William walked on down the road. His smile had gone. He no longer thought about Christmas. He swung the basket carelessly as he walked. An infuriated scratching and snarling came from inside.
William swung it still more carelessly.

‘I’m not a cat-carrier,’ he muttered, indignantly. ‘Makin’ me into a cat-carrier for him!’

He sighted Ginger, his ever faithful friend and ally, in the distance, and hailed him with a piercing whistle. Ginger came to him.

‘What d’you think’s in here?’ queried William.

‘Dunno!’

‘An ole cat! An’ whose d’you think it is?’

‘Dunno!’

‘Well, a man’s givin’ it to my sister. An’ how much d’you think he’s givin’ me for takin’ it?’

‘Dunno!’

‘Nothin’!’
said William, bitterly. ‘Nothin’. Makin’ a cat-carrier of me for nothin’.’

‘Listen to it!’ said Ginger, enraptured.

‘It’s been carryin’ on something dreadful ever since I got it,’ said William. ‘It’s a beautiful, nice quiet cat, isn’t it? It’ll be nice for
Jumble an’ those poor ole rats when this sort of wild thing gets loose, won’t it? It’ll be nice for them, then.’

Sarcasm was a new weapon of William’s, and as yet his use of it was heavy

‘Let’s have a look at it,’ said Ginger.

‘Oh, yes,’ said William. ‘It’s all right for you. You aren’t going to have looks at it all the res’ of your life. You aren’t going to have your life
an’ the lives of your dog an’ rats made a misery by it for the rest of your life. I don’t feel inclined to waste time lookin’ at it. Listenin’ to its carryin’
on’s enough for me
jus’
at present. You’ve not been made a cat-carrier for nothing. You don’t feel like I do about it.’

‘Let me jus’ peep, William.’

‘All right, if you take any int’rest in it. I don’t. I should think there’s some law about givin’ wil’ animals for presents. There oughter be. Human life
oughter be sacreder than wot it seems to be to him. All right. Look at it. Don’t blame me if it leaves its mark on you for life. It’s a nice, quiet-tempered sort of cat. Oh, yes!
Very!’ He laughed sarcastically.

Ginger cautiously opened the basket top a fraction of an inch.

A small, white paw shot out. Ginger closed it hastily and sucked his hand with an expression of agony on his face.

‘Golly!’ he ejaculated.

‘There!’ said William, triumphantly. ‘Didn’t I tell you? It’ll prob’ly give you blood poisoning. All I hope is, if you die of it, he’ll get hung. He
oughter be – sendin’ wild cats without tamin’ them first.’

Ginger assumed a heroic expression.

‘It wasn’t much of a scratch. Let’s have another look.’

He opened the lid of the basket again. Both William and Ginger disclaimed responsibility for what followed. William said he wasn’t touching it, and Ginger said that he only opened it a bit
and he didn’t know that the creature was mad – not really mad – not right off its head like that. Anyway, a white ball of fury hurled itself out of the basket, dealt William a long scratch
across his cheek, nearly tore off Ginger’s ear, and disappeared over the nearest wall.

‘Well,’ said William, coldly. ‘What you going to do now?’

‘
Me?
’ said Ginger.

‘Yes. Jus’ tell me how you’re going to replace a valu’ble cat wot you’ve just let loose. Jus’ tell me wot I’m goin’ to do. Am I going home to say
I’ve got a valu’ble cat, in a highly nervous state, and then them find there’s nothing in the basket but jus’ air? This is all I get for being his cat-carrier! Well, you let
it loose, an’ you’ve got to
re
place it. That’s sense, isn’t it? I was jus’ quietly carryin’ a valu’ble cat, in a highly nervous state, down the
road, an’ you come along an’ let it loose. Well, wot you goin’ to do?’

‘Well, wot can I do?’ said Ginger, helplessly. ‘I din’t know the thing was a cat lunatick, did I? It oughter be in a cat asylum. You never told me you was carryin’
a wild cat or a mad cat. You jus’ said a cat. You—’

But the white ball of fury had appeared again, flying over the wall and down the road at full speed. William grasped his empty basket, and started after it.

‘Come on!’ he shouted, as he ran. ‘Come on! Catch it! Catch it!’

They raced down the road after the flying white ball – first the cat, then William, then Ginger – through a garden, leaving a cursing gardener in their rear – in and out of a house, leaving its
irate owner ringing up the police – first the cat, then William, then Ginger, breathless and afire with the chase.

Along a wall, the cat on the top and William and Ginger at the foot.

They nearly got her then. She fell into a rain-tub in a private garden at the foot of the wall, but scrambled out and fled again, dripping and grimy . . . through a muddy ditch . . . the ball of
fury was now not white, but a dingy grey . . . and suddenly right into a tabby cat with a broken ear, who was washing its face by the roadside. There was a whirl of claws and flying fur . . .

‘Get it now!’ yelled William. ‘Get it while they’re fighting.’

Ginger seized the basket and effected the capture neatly, but not without a dozen or so more scratches. They fastened up the basket and resumed their journey

‘Well, you can’t say I din’t do that, can you?’ said Ginger, vaingloriously. ‘You can’t say I din’t do that pretty neatly! You can’t say you
helped much there. I bet if
you’d
all these scratches there’d be some sort of a fuss!’

THE WHITE CAT RAN SUDDENLY INTO A TABBY CAT WITH A BROKEN EAR. THERE WAS A WHIRL OF FURY. ‘GET IT NOW!’ YELLED WILLIAM. ‘GET IT WHILE THEY’RE
FIGHTING!’

‘Yes, and who let it loose? That’s all I’m asking. Who let it loose? . . . Oh, come on! Let’s get it home. I’m about sick of it. I’m about sick of being his
cat-carrier!’

They walked along in silence for a bit.

‘Seems a bit quieter, doesn’t it?’ said Ginger.

‘Speck it knows now it’s no use makin’ a fuss. Speck it din’t quite know before wot sort of cat-catchers we was.’

‘Let’s have another look at it, William!’

‘Oh, yes, an’ go lettin’ it loose all over the place again. Oh, yes, do!’

‘It’s quiet now. It’ll not mind me lookin’. I want to see if it’s got very dirty.’

William weakened.

‘I’ll have a look at it this time,’ he said, ‘then p’raps it won’t get loose all over the place!’

Cautiously he opened the basket lid. Over his face came a look of horror. It faded, leaving it grim and scornful.

‘Oh, yes, you did it,’ he said, with heavy sarcasm. ‘You did it pretty neatly, as you said you did. Oh, yes, I din’t help much. Oh, yes, you caught it.’

He opened the basket wider. A friendly tabby, with a broken ear, regarded them and gave a tentative purr.

‘Oh, yes, you caught it all right, but you caught the
wrong
one!’

Ginger looked at it, aghast, speechless. Then he pulled himself together.

‘Well, we’ll have to pretend that it’s the one.’

‘Oh, yes,’ said William. ‘She’ll believe it’s a valu’ble white cat, in a highly nervous state, won’t she? Oh, yes, she’s quite likely to believe
that!’

They sat down by the roadside and stared at each other hopelessly. The tabby showed no signs of wishing to leave them, though, in their despair, they had left the basket open.

‘We – might do something to make it nervous,’ suggested Ginger, feebly.

He began to make strange noises of obviously hostile and insulting intent to the cat. The cat began to purr. William watched with cold scorn.

‘Oh, yes, and then do somethin’ to make it valu’ble, an’ then do somethin’ to make it white!’

They were both strangely silent at this last suggestion. The hopelessness of their countenances seemed to clear.

‘It mightn’t stay on, of course,’ said William, ‘but it might make it look all right for a bit.’

‘Where can we get some?’ asked Ginger, cryptically.

‘P’raps old Lawkins has some,’ said William. ‘You can pay for it.’

They carefully replaced the tabby cat in the basket and went towards the village shop.

William entered and stated his needs.

‘White paint?’ said the shopman. ‘I think so. I think so. For iron work?’

‘Well,’ admitted William, ‘it’s really for fur – I mean—’ he corrected himself hastily, ‘for somethin’ – for somethin’ a bit softer than
iron.’

‘For wood?’ suggested the old man.

‘I ’speck that’d do,’ said William, ‘and a brush too, please.’

They retired to a deserted field to perform the delicate task.

William took the brush in one hand and put down the paint-pot on the grass by his feet. Then he took out the cat.

‘Now,
I’m
going to do this,’ he explained, ‘because I want it done prop’ly. I don’t want this cat let loose all over the place.’

He held the cat in one hand and drew a bold line of white paint down its back. The next moment he was sucking a deep, red scratch on either hand, and a white-flecked tabby cat was disappearing
in the distance.

‘You did that all right, din’t you?’ said Ginger, not without satisfaction.

William rose wearily, picking up the empty basket. He was too disheartened even to save what was left of the paint.

‘Oh, let’s leave it and go home,’ said Ginger.

‘Oh, yes, that’s all right,’ burst out William. ‘It’s all right for
you.
You’ve not to go home and say you’ve lost a valu’ble white cat, in
a highly nervous state, wot someone was giving to Ethel.’

‘Well, what can I do?’ snapped Ginger.

‘You can perduce some sort of a cat,’ said William firmly. ‘That’s all I say. You let the first one loose all over the place, and you can perduce another. That’s
all I say I’m not going home without some sort of a cat. I don’t mind about it bein’ valu’ble, or white, or nervous; but I must go home with some sort of a cat. All I ask
you is to perduce some sort of a cat.’

‘I wish you’d stop saying that,’ said Ginger, irritably.

‘Well, perduce one an’ I will,’ said William, imperturbably.

‘There ought to be lots of cats about,’ said Ginger. ‘Let’s go to the road again.’

They went down the village street. Only one cat was to be seen. William and Ginger approached it cautiously.

‘Pretty pussy!’ said William, hoarsely.

‘Puss, puss, puss!!’ said Ginger, in honeyed accents.

‘Pretty pussy! Pretty pussy! An’ I feel more like mur-derin’ it,’ said William.

The cat sidled up to them.

William picked it up, stroking it affectionately with an expression of intense hatred on his face.

‘Open the basket, Ginger, quickly.’

‘Mother!’ came a shrill voice to his rear. ‘Boys is stealin’ our cat!’

William dropped the cat and fled down the road, followed by a broomstick, flung after him by the cat’s owner, and a stone thrown by the child. The extent to which William’s spirit
had been broken by his troubles was shown by the fact that he endured these outrages without retaliation.

When it was safe to relax his speed, he turned to Ginger.