THE CAT WAS CRAZY
On a recent Sunday afternoon, an itinerant evangelist with a throat of brass was stationed at the corner of Richardson and Plain Streets in Columbia, singing hymns in the laudable endeavor to save a soul or two.
From an upper window of the Grand Central Hotel a fair face looked out to the westward, while a child tapped upon the pane.
At a club window opposite, a young bachelor banker sipped his Sunday cocktail while he eyed critically the passers-by on their way from church. How many of their financial secrets did he hold in his keeping! How many of their obligations were locked in his vaults! The note of that jauntily dressed young man, who held his head so high as he spurned the dust from his patent leathers, had gone to protest but yesterday. The extravagance of yonder portly lady, who, with silken sails spread to the breeze, towed after her, as a tug tows a coal barge, one of the fashionable fourteen-inch trains, scattering in her wake banana peel, cigar butts and other miscellaneous wreckage of the street, had cost her husband another mortgage.
The banker was of a thrifty mind, and he wondered why, in the name of Saint Peter—why, in the name of the patron saints of cleanliness and all the gods of common-sense, fashion should exact of its devotees the performance of the unæsthetic work of the street-sweeper and the scavenger! Thinking, with a sigh, that shorter skirts might have permitted longer bank accounts, he turned his eyes to the wooded hills of Lexington above which hung the setting sun, a greatdisk of gold. With his mental coupon shears, the speculative financier quickly clipped the “orb of day” into gold treasury certificates, put them out at interest—compounded, of course—and, with one more Vermouth cocktail to aid his imaginative computation, he was, in a twinkling, possessed of the wealth of Monte Cristo. And now the world and all beyond was his! On fancy’s wings he sailed away, away to Arcadie. Instead of herding bulls and bears, a shepherd now was he. Like Strephon, he played upon a pipe, while at his feet the lambkins played, or huddled together in the sunshine “so warm and sleepy and white.”
Garlanded with roses, the shepherdess led him through leafy bowers into an open glade, where, among the buttercups and daisies, he fell asleep, and dreamed.Ay, Dios!How few of us realize, until all too late, that the simplest pleasures are the best, that in home and friends we may make for ourselves happiness far above that which must be sought beyond our circle. How few of us realize that there is more exhilaration in a five-mile spin than in a quart of champagne, that ’tis more blessed to swish the briefest cotton skirt in Arcadie—if in Arcadie we belong—than to drag a satin train in a Paris salon!
But the banker dreamed, and the strains of the Santiago waltz were in his ears, and the houris of Mahomet glided along before him wreathed in—smiles. One, fairer than the rest, beckoned, and he followed on and on. Out into the darkness he followed the golden gleam of her beautiful bi-carbonated hair, followed through tangled forest and treacherous fen—alas! the will-o’-the-wisp!
With a start, he awoke from his reverie to find—likethe market girl who stumbled and smashed the basket of eggs from which she had hatched out all her hopes—that his gold was gone, for suddenly the sharp edge of the horizon was drawn like a scimitar across the throat of the sinking sun, and in an instant the western sky, away up to the zenith, was stained as with his life blood!
With a shudder, as though chilled from sitting in the overdraft of his imagination, the banker took his hat and went out into the street, where the evangelist, having closed his song service, was exhorting the little group clustered around him.
Suddenly, on the edge of the gathering, an old negro, bent with age and with a face furrowed by grief, appeared. He led by the hand a little black girl about ten years old. Her eyes were round with fright, and about her thin legs a ragged red calico skirt flapped like a weather-stained flag at half-mast.
The old man skirted the group, eagerly scanning each face as though looking for a sympathetic ear into which to pour his sorrows. Not finding what he wanted, he hurried on toward the State House, dragging the child after him, until, in front of a newspaper office, he saw a round-waisted gentleman with a priestly look talking to a tall, long-bearded one of the old school. Detecting benevolence in the faces of both, he approached the shorter of the two, and, in an anxious voice, inquired—“Maussuh, please, suh, tell me ef cat kin git crazy?”
“Do you mean is it possible for a cat to have rabies?”
“No, suh, ’taint rabbit, ’tis cat.”
“I apprehend,” said the English purist, “that you desire to ascertain whether it is possible for a cat tohave the rabies. I may say, for your information, that there are, literally and mathematically speaking, 18 phases of insanity to which humanity is subject, ranging from the emotional insanity of commerce, to the popularmania a potu, vulgarly calleddelirium inebriosa. I do not care to give an off-hand opinion as to whether or not a cat may have one or more of these kinds of insanity, unless you will accurately describe the symptoms and put your questions categorically. It is manifestly a work of supererogation—”
“Great Gawd, maussuh!” said the old man, turning appealingly to the tall gentleman. “Please, suh, tell dis juntlemun dat my cat nebbuh had no rabbit, ’e only had kitten’. Yaas, suh. My cat name Jane, en’ ’e b’long to dis leetle gal chile w’ich is my gran’, en’ him (dat is de gal) name Jane, en’ Jane (dat is de cat) b’long to Jane (w’ich is de gal) en’ Jane does use to folluh Jane eb’ryweh ’e go, en’ Jane does berry lub Jane, en’ w’enebbuh Jane does ketch rat, ’e fetch’um een de house, en’ w’enebbuh Jane does git ’e bittle fuh eat, ’e always keep some uh de bittle fuh Jane, en’ w’en Jane (dat is de cat) had nine kitten’ een Mistuh Claa’k’ smokehouse on de t’ree Chuesday een dis same berry munt’, den Jane (dat is de gal) set up all night fuh nuss Jane (dat is de cat) en’, please Gawd, maussuh, jis’ as soon as de nyung kitten’ eye’ biggin fuh op’n, one shaa’pmout’ black dog, wid ’e tail stan’ like dese bu’d fedduh buckruh ’ooman does lub fuh pit on ’e hat w’en Sunday come, dis dog jump obuh de fench en’ bite’um, en’ Jane (dat is de cat en’ de gal alltwo) git berry agguhnize en’ twis’ up een alltwo dem min’, en’ Jane (dat is de cat) him jump obuh de fench en’ run’way, en’ de dog en’ Jane (dat is de gal)run attuh Jane (dat is de cat) ’tell w’en Jane (dat is de cat) staa’t fuh run down de lane, Jane (dat is de gal) see ole Unk’ Bill Rose—w’ich’n him is de Gub’nuh’ Claa’k, walkin’ good fashi’n down de lane. Now, de gal holluh att’um fuh ketch de cat, but eb’rybody know dat Unk’ Bill Rose is leetle kinduh bowleggit, en’, alldo’ him hol’ alltwo ’e foot togedduh, ’e foot couldn’ specify, en’ Jane (dat is de cat) jump clean t’ru Unk’ Bill Rose’ britchiz, en’ ’e git’way en’ gone, please Gawd, en’ lef’ Jane (dat is de gal) en’ lef’ ’e nine kitten’, w’ich all dem eye’ ent done open, een Mistuh Claa’k’ smokehouse, en’ gone en’ jump obuh de fench w’ich run roun’ de ’Sylum yaa’d—en’ dat de reaz’n w’ymekso I know berry well Jane (dat is de cat) mus’ be gone crazy, ’cause he gonespangeen de ’Sylum!”