Read Ebook: Harper's Round Table May 28 1895 by Various

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own tabby, with wide black stripes, and was given a blue ribbon, the mark of the first prize. He took it all very calmly, as much as to say, "You couldn't do anything less for one with such a name as mine."

But even "Grover Cleveland" was not so aristocratic-looking as "Grover B.," from Philadelphia. His short-haired coat was as white as the stone door-steps of the houses in his native town, and--think of it--his mistress values him at 00! So well brought up is he that he sits at the table with his master and mistress in a high chair and feeds himself with his paw. His master says that he eats more quietly and gracefully than their little nephew of five years, who, when he spills his bread and milk, is told he can profit by "Grover's" example. So fond of him is his master that his head appears on all his business paper and envelopes, so that "Grover B." is known all over the world, and, through his pictures on his master's envelopes, has travelled more extensively than almost any other cat.

An even more wonderful short-haired cat was "Mittens," who has actually been trained to love and live with birds. "Mittens" is a great deal of a swell. His grandfather was a pure-blooded Maltese, and his great-grandmamma was a very haughty Angora. All the traditions in his family prompted him to consider birds as his natural prey and dogs as his enemies. When he came to his present mistress, Mrs. M. L. Ponchez, the latter had two Yorkshire terriers, a parrot, eight canaries, a red-bird, and several chameleons, and of course she thought it would be pretty difficult for "Mittens" to live in peace with all these other pets. She thought she would try to teach him to be friendly to the birds and dogs, and this is what she did.

She first kept all of her pets a day without food, and then the next day placed the cat between the dogs while she fed him his breakfast. After that the cat and the dogs became such good friends that they all slept together. At the next meal she took one of the canaries, put him on her finger, and petted him while she held "Mittens" in her lap and fed him. This she did several times, and then let all of the birds fly around the cat. The latter never attempted to touch one, and frequently to-day you may see "Mittens" slumbering peacefully before the fire, with a canary nestled on the soft fur of his back.

While there were many more short-haired cats on exhibition for prizes, the long-haired ones created more attention because they are much less common. They had a separate room to themselves upstairs, and a band of music played for them lest they should forget that many of them were descended from cat emperors and princes in the far-off East. There was "Ajax," a white Angora, with firm mouth and keen eyes, his fluffy white mane looking like a lion's, every inch of him a king. There was "Paderewski," blue-ribboned, with longer and thicker hair than the famous musician whose name he bears. Near by an interested crowd watched "Ellen Terry" and her seven kittens. "Ellen" is a large white and orange Angora, and very cozy were she and her kittens in a basket lined with yellow silk and trimmed with dotted muslin. Her manners were perfect, for whenever her cunning little kittens were caressed she showed no surprise, but looked on with calm maternal pride.

Just to show by contrast how very aristocratic these long-haired cats were, six or eight lost cats from the Shelter for Animals were exhibited near the haughty Angoras. All but one looked sadly out of place. They were thin, their fur was uneven, and the disdainful sniffs which their Persian and Angora neighbors gave them made them feel very miserable indeed. But one of them, though, a short-haired cat, looked as if his grandfather had been a somebody in the cat kingdom, and he seemed to say,

"Though appearances are against me, please don't think that I belong to this vulgar herd of tramp cats."

And he was vindicated, for the third day of the show a little girl came rushing over to the cage with a glad cry of recognition, which the cat immediately responded to by joyful purring. The cat had been lost for over two weeks, and now as his young mistress took him away he looked back at his proud long-haired neighbors with a smile, which meant,

"Ah, you see I'm somebody, after all!"

Perhaps the readers of the ROUND TABLE would like to know whether their cats and kittens are "somebody" or not, whether they are pure-blooded examples of the classes to which they belong. It is quite simple. A prominent doctor, who knows more about cats than almost any other man in the United States, says that in judging a cat the first thing to be considered is its general symmetry.

"The body ought to be long and slenderly shaped, like that of a tiger. The eyes should be of a correct shade; for instance, a cat that is white should have blue eyes, a black cat yellow eyes, and so on. The eyes, too, should be round and full. The color of a cat is important, and is the key to its character. A cat of one color should have no other hue in its coat. The most rarely marked cat is the tortoise-shell, uneven patches of red, black, and yellow, equally distributed over the body. In the tabbies the dark markings should be in direct contrast with the light, gray or brown being marked with black, while blue is marked with some darker shade, and yellow with red."

So successful was this first cat show that it is almost settled that another one will be held next fall. A cat club is to be formed, as exclusive as some of the kennel clubs to which the cats' canine enemies belong. So that hereafter when a proud-looking Angora goes to call on a Maltese friend, the question no longer will be: "How many birds have you killed lately?" or, "How do you find your milk these days?" But as the pussies purr in good-fellowship together, you will hear them ask each other , "Are you going to the club this evening?" and "Shall I see you at the 'show' next fall?"

JOYS OF THE STEAMSHIP HUNT.

BY WILLIAM HEMMINGWAY.

The sport of steamship-hunting is the finest I ever enjoyed. It has more excitement in it than any other I have ever heard of. If you catch your ship properly you are happier than the slayer of many lions; if you don't catch her--well, there are some possibilities too shiverish to think about.

If the lion-hunter's rifle misses fire he loses his life, but if the steamship-hunter misses his game he loses most of his good name and all of his employment. Imagine, then, the studious skill he devotes to sweeping the wide field of ocean with his glasses. He knows that half a dozen other tug-loads of reporters are out on the same errand, and that if any of them "beat" him he'd better sail right down into Davy Jones's locker and lock it from the inside.

"Wind blowing fifty-six miles an hour from the N. W."

Two wise men, who had been to sea a few times, insisted on staying several miles inside of Sandy Hook, but the other man insisted a great deal harder on going. Off we went after a very short debate. The wind rattled the pilot-house windows, and if the door fell ajar a moment the breeze nearly whipped it off and blew it away. The bay was covered with floating ice. There were some cakes almost as big as a city block, and some looked tiny enough to put in a glass of water; but most of them were as long and wide as the deck of a big canal-boat. Every time one of the big fellows crunched against our bow we couldn't help wondering whether it was coming through. The moon flooded the vast field of white, and made it look as if we were sailing over a great prairie. Now and then we came to patches of clear blue water, and these danced in the moon's rays like giant turquoises. The tug's condensed steam rolled and bounded along, seeming like great masses of ivory. The intense cold caused this curious effect. Everything was fairylike, except the harsh grinding and cannonlike thumps of the ice.

Off the point of Sandy Hook we were almost clear of ice. Nobody could see anything that looked like a steamship coming from the eastward. The ice had kept the water quiet, but here in the open it was heaving and pitching under the lash of the gale. We ran into the Horseshoe inside of Sandy Hook, trying to get up to the landing, so that if we had very late news to send we could telegraph it from Sandy Hook, instead of Quarantine, which was an hour to the north of us. Ice was packed and jammed so thick and tight inside the Horseshoe that not even an icicle could be pushed into it. After our tug narrowly escaped being caught and held fast for the night we backed out. No use trying to land.

"Mast-head light to the east'd!" sang out our skipper as we rounded the point of the Hook. Has your heart ever begun to dance at the sight of a school of bluefish when you were running down toward them with four squids trailing from your cat-boat? Have you ever heard a deer come crashing through the thicket toward your rifle? Imagine us, then, when we heard those words. Every man whipped out a night-glass, or waited eagerly for his neighbor's. A speck of yellow light on the horizon crawled slowly up the blue sky.

"She's a liner," said our captain. "The ice and the hurricane have sent all the channel buoys adrift" , "so her pilot will anchor outside."

Every minute dragged outrageously until we got alongside of the steamship. Nothing in her appearance except the three red lights indicated that anything was wrong. She was moving slowly--only eight miles an hour. We ran under her stern, and got alongside her lee bow. Groups of passengers gathered along the rails, although it was now very near midnight. They cheered the men who came so far to welcome them. An officer on the bridge told of the accident in a dozen words. Through one of the ports we could see a blue-jacketed steward polishing a plate.

"Has Faure formed a cabinet yet?" shouted one passenger.

The answer we gave him was lost in the chorus of cheers. Some one weighted a copy of the ship's log, and threw it aboard our tug.

But while all this was very pleasant, it was not enough. The ship's officers promised to lower a companion-ladder for our men to go aboard.

A long wait. No ladder. Our own skipper solved the problem by ordering his men to throw up a twenty-foot wooden ladder--a fragile thing. Such roars in English and counter-roars in French as there were while that ladder was being arranged!

"Take a couple of bights of that line, and make it fast on the third rung, you three-fingered blacksmith!" yelled our mate.

But they got aboard all right. Afterward came the interviewing, the hurried writing of copy, the telegraphing from a secret place in Staten Island out of the reach of news thieves; but all that is the mere recital of how we carried home our game.

THE YOUNG BEACH-COMBERS OF MONMOUTH.

BY AGNES CARR SAGE.

"I say he sha'n't come in!"

"And I tell you he shall!"

The boys' voices rose high and angry; their attitude was threatening; and at the sound of contention a bevy of other barefooted urchins came scampering over the damp sand, shouting, "Hi! a scrap, a scrap!" and eager to see fair play.

"What's it all about?" inquired Ned Eaton, a good-looking youth, rather better dressed than his companions.

"It's about little Jem Ferguson," spoke up the shorter and stockier of the belligerents. "Kit Bandy here says he oughtn't to be let into the beach-combing, and I hold it's mean as cramp-fish to bar him out just because he's weak and pindlin' and no account in a boat."

"So it is, so it is," chorused the listening youngsters.

But Kit put in quickly, "All right, let him in then; but if you do he'll hoodoo every mother's son of us. Who killed the luck bird last June?"

"Not Jem," cried Herbert Woolley.

"No; but his daddy did, and if he had been drinking too much hard cider at the time, that makes no difference, and the whole family has had a powerful sight of bad fortune ever since. Jest two weeks after their cow choked to death with a green apple; Jem's hip trouble grew worse; and Jake Smithers told me that the smack in which Dan Ferguson sails is sure to come back with a light haul. The men all look on him as a Jonah, for fish don't come to the nets of those who take the life of a hawk."

"Well, but ill-luck can't be inherited, like consumption or the shape of one's nose," protested Herbert, "and even if it could, Jem's having a bit of sand to sift couldn't affect the rest of us."

Still the boys glanced at each other doubtfully, and one muttered. "We'll each have more ground, and so more chance, if he isn't there," while Kit clinched his argument by declaring, "Oh, if Bert has his way we all may as well give up all hope of winning that," pointing, as he spoke, to a flaring yellow poster which adorned one of the bathing-houses.

ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS!!!

was the heading, in conspicuous capitals two inches long, and below this amount was offered, in smaller type, as a reward for the return of a diamond earring lost by one of the summer visitors in Benton, the pretty New Jersey village where these lads lived, and which was a quasi-fashionable seaside resort for three months of the year. Now, however, the broad white beach was given into the hands of those young natives who in the early fall make a business of going carefully over it, rubbing the iridescent sand between their fingers, and seeking for any articles there lost and hidden during the gay warm season.

In grim silence, then, the boys re-read the advertisement which all knew by heart, and Ned Eaton suggested, "Let's take a vote. Those who want Limpy Jem to have a show drop a white shell in my hat, and those who are for freezing him out a purple one."

"Yes, yes, that is a good way; that will be fair." And the members of this hastily formed Beach-Comber's Union turned aside with relief to select their ballots from the deep-sea treasures cast up by the bobbing foam-capped waves.

Five minutes later, then, the polls were open, and Kit looked triumphant and Bert annoyed as both noted that the majority of the voters were endeavoring to conceal dark mussel-shells in their brown little fists. There was no doubt that Jem's fate was sealed, when suddenly a faint shout attracted their attention, and all started at sight of a slender auburn-haired lassie speeding toward them from the direction of the village. "Gee whizz, but it's Eileen Ferguson!" shrieked small Teddy Todd, "and her temper is as fiery as her curly mop."

Certainly there was a dangerous flash in her big gray eyes and a sharp ring in her young voice as, coming nearer, she cried: "So, Kit Bundy, you are playin' the snake in the grass again, are you? You never did like my brother, and now I hear you are tryin' to have him put out of the beach-combin'. Poor Jemmy, who is too sickly to go to the fishin'-banks, and has so looked forward to the fall in hopes of earnin' a few dollars for the mither! I should think ye'd be ashamed of yourself! Dickson, the bathin'-master tould me how you were talkin' to the others; but you won't mind him, will you, boys?" And there was that in the appealing, half tearful glance which the earnest little sister turned upon them that made most of her hearers look sheepish, and become deeply absorbed in stirring up the sand with their toes.

But Kit, was furious. "What?" he roared; "be dictated to by a girl? Not if I know our combers. Go on, fellows, and vote as you intended; while, Miss Impudence, the sooner you take yourself off the better."

Instinctively, however, Eileen turned to young Woolley. "Oh, Bert, Bert!" she wailed, "don't let them throw my Jemmy out. He has had such a dreadful summer, and this--this will break his heart. We need the money so much, and niver did he dream his old friends could treat him so." Then all at once her wrath dissolved in a girlish burst of tears.

"Pepper me if I can stand that, bad luck or not," growled Ned, hurriedly picking up a white shell and flinging it into the hat; and as boys, like older people, are very much akin to a flock of sheep, the majority followed suit, and Jem Ferguson was, as in former years, numbered with the beach-combers, the three purple shells cast by Kit and two of his chums not being sufficient to rule him out.

"A thousand thanks, boys! You are blissid darlints, ivery one of ye--barrin' that trio," exclaimed Eileen, who, though American born, in moments of excitement sometimes betrayed her ancestry by her speech.

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