Had Bolivar been satisfied to kill his cats once only, his record would have been bigger, but he had a habit of killing his victims several times, going back to them and shaking and tossing them and crunching their spines with his front teeth, and while this habit had the advantage of making his cats and rats very dead indeed, it lost him a good deal of time.
I slipped out of bed and went to the window and looked out, just as the triumphant Bolivar tore around the house, dragging his prey and kicking up the grave as he ran. Just beneath me he paused to re-kill his victim, shaking it viciously, tossing it over his head, and with a goatlike spring catching it again. Then, taking it at the head, he, with savage growls, began nipping it down its back. At that moment I heard the stairs creak, and some one softly opened the front door, and then Mr. Tyler’s friend came into view.
He was dressed, or--that is to say--er--er, well, he wasn’t undressed, quite. His feet were thrust into a pair of heelless slippers, and I experienced a feeling of some surprise at the number of strings I could see dangling from him. There were two broad, white ones hanging down behind from the waist-line, and at least four pieces of white tape trailed along behind his bare heels, which looked in the moonlight like a pair of fine onions--moonlight always has that strange, transforming power.
Yes, though his dress was careless and simple to a degree, still it answered quite nicely for two o’clock in the morning, though ten hours later it would have landed him in the fine, new insane asylum waiting for gentlemen dressed that way.
He conversed with Bolivar a few moments, and his gestures, while a trifle angular, were really very impressive and expressive. What he said seemed to fill Bolivar with utter amazement, and finally with shame and vexation. I am positive that, had he had a tail, it would have been but a wagless sagging down, and vanity of vanities. As it was, he could only bow his head and meekly follow his master, carefully stepping on all four of the trailing tapes, whenever he could, and making a snap now and then at the broad, white things dangling from the waist-line.
Once more was he put into the kennel and tied, this time with a clothes-line, which might have tried the strength of the best steer in the cattle market. Once more peace descended upon us. Bolivar had earned fresh laurels to rest upon. The live cats had gone away, and the dead cats kept perfectly quiet, which was all one had the right to expect of them.