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Ebook has 103 lines and 6914 words, and 3 pages

A NIGHT OUT

BY EDWARD PEPLE

Omar Ben Sufi was a cat. This unadorned statement would have wounded Omar Ben to the marrow of his pride, for he chanced to be a splendid tiger-marked feline of purest Persian breed, with glorious yellow eyes and a Solomon-in-all-his-glory tail. His pedigree could be traced directly back to Padisha Zim Yuki Yowsi Zind--a dignity, in itself, sufficient to cause an aristocratic languor; but, to the layman, he was just a cat.

He dwelt with an exclusive family of humans in a little eighty-thousand-dollar cottage on the outskirts of vulgarity--which is to say, the villa was situated near enough to town to admit of marketing, but far enough removed therefrom to escape the clatter of plebeian toil and the noxious contact with the unhealthy, unwealthy herd. Here the humans entertained selected friends who came at the ends of weeks to admire the splendor of Omar Ben's tail, to bow down to the humans' money, and to hate them fiercely because they had it.

The master did not toil. He lived, for certain hours of the day, in Wall Street, where he sank his patrician fingers into the throats of lesser men, squeezed them dry, then washed his hands in violet water, and built a church. True, he did not attend this church himself, but he built it; otherwise his neighbors might have been deprived of the opportunity of praising God.

Omar Ben had a French maid all to himself--a perky little human with a quasi-kinship to the feline race--who combed him and brushed him and slicked him down and gave him endless, mortifying baths. Also, she tied lavender bows about his neck, and fed him from Dresden china on minute particles of flaked fish and raw sirloin, with a dessert of pasteurized cream.

Then, one day, from the vulgar outer world came an unclean incident.

He was not a patrician. Omar Ben eyed him in a sort of wondering awe. The stranger was a long-barreled, rumple-furred, devil-clawed street arab, of a caste--or no-caste--that battles for existence with the world--and beats it. On his tail were rings of missing fur, suggesting former attachments, not of lady friends, but of tin cans and strings. For further assets, he possessed one eye and a twisted smile. His present total liability lay in the dog beyond the wall, so the arab wasn't so badly fixed, after all. Besides, he owned property. It consisted of a bullfrog which he carried in his mouth, with its legs and web feet protruding in wriggly, but unavailing, protest.

To breathe the better, the street cat dropped his frog and set one mangy paw upon it; then, suddenly, he spied the Persian.

"Hello, bo!" he observed cheerfully. "Didn't see yer. Did yer pipe me chase wid de yelper? Dat stilt-legged son of a saw-toothed tyke has had his nose on me rudder-post fer more'n a mile."

The Persian made no answer, and the arab continued, unabashed:

"It's a hunch dat I could 'a' clawed de stuffin's outer him, but I didn't want fer to lose me lunch. Say! Wot's yer name?"

Omar Ben regarded the interloper with the same glance of refined surprise that the master might have employed when a fleeced plebeian entered his office, demanding to know why the market had slumped in direct contradiction to confidential prophecy. He elevated his patrician brows, but gave the desired information politely:

He smiled his twisted smile, raised one paw, and regarded its claws with a sort of humorous pride.

The Persian cat said nothing. Ringtail Pete was obviously an undesirable acquaintance; therefore Omar Ben held his tongue, and became interested in the bullfrog. Curiosity, however, conquered refined reserve.

"What is it?" he asked presently.

"Frawg," said the street cat, with laconic candor, as he gracefully mauled the subject of discussion. "I gets 'em over to the frawg-pawnd up back of Lumkins's tannery. Have a piece?"

"Thank you, no," returned the Persian, with a faint smile of his own. "I've just had luncheon."

Pete shrugged his gaunt shoulders, murdered the frog, and prepared to dispose of it permanently. Omar Ben edged closer. In spite of his polite refusal, the frog fascinated him. Never in all his benighted life had he tasted one morsel which had not been prepared for him on dainty china; but now it was different. Across the geranium-bed came a strange, alluring scent--a scent which roused the memory of inheritance--a memory well-nigh washed out of him, and his sire before him, by the bottle-pap of luxury. A memory it was of wild things, to be killed--a blood-lust memory--and now at last it woke in a pampered, velvet-hearted cat.

Ringtail Pete was conscious of the other's wistful look, and laughed; for his battle with life had taught him generosity.

"Say, bo, yer don't want to do de bashful--see?--'cause me 'n' you is gents what understands de game er chanst. Here--take holt an' chaw yerse'f off a hunk!"

"Hully gee!" grinned Ringtail Pete. "We otter make a wish!"

They made it, and the metaphoric wish-bone parted with a jerk, Omar Ben rolling upon his lordly back in the healthy dirt; but he rose and devoured his frog-leg to its smallest bone, wishing with all his heart that the frog had been a bigger frog. Then he licked his chops and looked in admiration on his worldly friend.

"Aw, 't wan't nuttin'," he declared, "an' dey tastes a darn sight better when yer wades fer 'em. Say! Look-a-here! You meet me to-night on de top er dis here wall, an' I'll learn yer how to wade fer frawgs."

"Oh, dear!" began the Persian, trembling at the very mention of the outer world. "Really, Mr. Pete, I--really--"

"Punk!" cut in the arab, dismissing the protest with a switch of his mutilated tail. "I won't take 'naw' fer a answer; an' dis here's de way fer to jump yer wealthy crib. You watch me!"

He backed away, then took a running start and made the coping of the wall in a splendid, scurrying rush, amid a shower of scattered ivy-leaves. On the top he turned and called to the wondering aristocrat:

"Jes' wait fer me an' de moon, me son, an' dontcher fergit dat frawgs is frawgs!"

Once more he smiled his twisted smile, and was gone into the vulgar outer world. He had not waited for a promise from his friend, for Pete was wise in his little hour of life and left the keeping of a tryst with the honor of a gentleman.

As for Omar Ben, he sat in the healthy grime of the garden soil, his mind a prey to the poison of glittering promises, till suddenly a human fell upon him with an absurd French shriek and bore him away to the lap of comfort and a scented bath.

In the bath he yowled; and wept when another lavender bow was tied about his neck; and yet, had Mlle. Frenchy observed him carefully, she might have caught him smiling.

All day long he dozed and dreamed--dreamed of the vulgar world beyond the wall--for now it seemed to his pampered soul that the pole star of an earthly cat's desire was "frawgs."

At the humans' dinner-time he scorned their expensive fare and sneaked away into the shadows of the garden to wait for Ringtail Pete and the rising of the moon. It rose; and, as it peeped above the wall, there also rose a cautious signal-wail, and Pete's one eye glowed green among the ivy-vines.

"Hi, spote!" grinned the owner of the eye, as Omar Ben clawed his way to a perch beside him. "Yer clumb dat wall in a way dat make me proud. Now, den, we're off!"

They dropped into the outer world. Omar Ben was trembling somewhat, but tried his best to conceal the mortifying fact, and presently he conquered it. After walking for a quarter of a mile along a country road, they approached the outskirts of the town and began to cross it, employing unfrequented paths. They traversed an alley, black and reeking with nightly smells, pausing at last on the verge of a lighted street whence rose the sound of human mirth, bits of vulgar song, and the barking of vagrant dogs.

"S-h-h-h!" cautioned Ringtail. "You wait till I counts to t'ree, den make a rush fer de alley acrost de street--see?"

"But, why?" asked Omar Ben, wondering.

Pete sniffed in scorn of the uninitiated.

"Well, nemmine why! You do like I tells yer, or yer'll git yer eggercation wid a brick. Now den! One--two--t'ree! Hump it, bo!"

They humped it, making the other alley's mouth by a margin slim indeed, followed by human howls and a clattering volley of sticks and stones.

"Boys," grinned Pete. "De town is gittin' fair congested wid 'em. But 'tain't nuttin', son; it's jes' a part er de game er life. Come on."

The way was easier now, and they journeyed without alarm. Presently Ringtail turned to his friend with his twisted smile:

"Yer see dat lady settin' on de gate-post? Well, dat's me steady. I'll interjuce yer in a minute."

The lady in question was a thin, dirty white cat with bold eyes and a brazen bearing, and Omar Ben was doubtful of her caste.

"Thank you," he murmured non-committally, and hurried on; but the meeting was unavoidable, for the lady crossed the street and stood directly in his path.

"Hi, Mame!" said Pete, in cordial greeting. "Shake hands wid me friend, Mr.--er--aw hell! Shake hands wid bo!"

Omar Ben had never seen a lady-cat, and his ideal of the sex was something modest and retiring. Miss Mame was not retiring. She greeted her friend's friend without the courtesy of a "Mr.," looked in open admiration at the handsome gentleman, and asked if he were single.

The aristocrat murmured a commonplace and edged away. At the slight the lady took umbrage, spat warningly, and showed her claws, till Ringtail averted trouble by a generous display of tact.

"Now, don't git phony, Mame!" he remarked in a gentle whisper. "De gent's all right, but he's young, dat's all, an' I'm goin' to learn him--see? You chase aroun' fer Lizzie, an' if de goil ain't got no udder date, yet kin meet us here 'bout moondown, an' we'll bring yer a brace er frawgs. So long, Mame! Remember dat I loves yer!"

With a partly mollified sniff, the lady retired to her gate-post, and the two adventurers went on. They came to the evil-smelling tannery, and to the frog-pond just behind it, stretching cold and still in the moonlight, and covered with a noxious, slimy scum. It was horribly different from the Persian's usual baths, but, once in he forgot its chill in the lust of the hunt.

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