"Now, then, look here," said the policeman, very loudly, and he pointed his lantern at each child in turn; "what's the meaning of this here yelling and caterwauling? I tell you you've got a cat here, and someone's a-illtreating of it. What do you mean by it, eh?"
It was five to one, counting the Phoenix, but the policeman, who was one, was of unusually fine size, and the five, including the Phoenix, were small. The mews and the squeaks grew softer, and in the comparative silence Cyril said:--
"It's true. There are a few cats here. But we've not hurt them. It's quite the opposite. We've just fed them."
"It don't sound like it," said the policeman, grimly.
"If you understood anything except people who steal and do murders and stealings and naughty things like that I'd tell you all about it," said Robert, "but I'm certain you don't. You're not meant to shove your oar into people's private cat-keepings. You're only supposed to interfere when people shout 'Murder!' and 'Stop thief!' in the street. So there!"
The policeman assured them that he should see about that, and at this point the Phoenix, who had been making itself small on the pot-shelf under the dresser, among the saucepan-lids and the fish-kettle, walked on tip-toed claws in a noiseless and modest manner, and left the room unnoticed by anyone.
"Oh, don't be so horrid!" Anthea was saying, gently and earnestly. "We _love_ cats--dear, pussy-soft things. We wouldn't hurt them for worlds. Would we, Pussy?"
And Jane answered that of course they wouldn't.
And still the policeman seemed unmoved by their eloquence.
"Now, look here," he said, "I'm a going to see what's in that room beyond there--and----"
His voice was drowned in a wild burst of mewing and squeaking.
And as soon as it died down all four children began to explain at once, and though the squeaking and mewing were not at their very loudest, yet there was quite enough of both to make it very hard for the policeman to understand a single word of any of the four wholly different explanations now poured out to him.
"Stow it!" he said, at last. "I'm a-going into the next room in the execution of my duty. I'm a-going to use my eyes--my ears are gone off their chumps, what with you and them cats."
And he pushed Robert aside and strode through the door.
"Don't say I didn't warn you," said Robert.
"It's tigers, _really_," said Jane. "Father said so. I wouldn't go in if I were you."
But the policeman was quite stony; nothing anyone said seemed to make any difference to him. Some policemen are like this, I believe. He strode down the passage, and in another moment he would have been in the room with all the cats and all the rats (musk), but at that very instant a thin, sharp voice screamed from the street outside:--
"Murder! Murder! Stop thief!"
The policeman stopped, with one regulation boot heavily poised in the air.
"Eh?" he said.
And again the shrieks sounded shrilly and piercingly from the dark street outside.
"Come on," said Robert. "Come and look after cats while somebody's being killed outside." For Robert had an inside feeling that told him quite plainly _who_ it was that was screaming.
"You young rip!" said the policeman. "I'll settle up with you bimeby."
And he rushed out; and the children heard his boots going weightily along the pavement, and the screams also going along rather ahead of the policeman, and both the murder-screams and the policeman's boots faded away in the remote distance.
Then Robert smacked his knickerbockers loudly with his palm, and said:--
"Good old Phɶnix! I should know its golden voice anywhere."
And then everyone understood how cleverly the Phɶnix had caught at what Robert had said about the real work of a policeman being to look after murderers and thieves, and not after cats, and all hearts were filled with admiring affection.
[Illustration: "THE POLICEMAN STOPPED, WITH ONE REGULATION BOOT POISED IN THE AIR."]
"But he'll come back," said Anthea, mournfully, "as soon as he finds the murderer is only a bright vision of a dream, and there isn't one at all really."
"No, he won't," said the soft voice of the clever Phɶnix, as he flew in. "_He does not know where your house is._ I heard him own as much to a fellow-mercenary. Oh! what a night we are having! Lock the door, and let us rid ourselves of this intolerable smell of the perfume peculiar to the musk-rat and to the house of the trimmers of beards. If you'll excuse me I will go to bed. I am worn out."
It was Cyril who wrote the paper that told the carpet to take away the rats and bring milk, because there seemed to be no doubt in any breast that, however Persian cats may be, they must like milk.
"Let's hope it won't be musk-milk," said Anthea, in gloom, as she pinned the paper face-downwards on the carpet. "Is there such a thing as a musk-cow?" she added, anxiously, as the carpet shrivelled and vanished. "I do hope not. Perhaps, really, it _would_ have been wiser to let the carpet take the cats away. It's getting quite late, and we can't keep them all night."
"Oh, can't we?" was the bitter rejoinder of Robert, who had been fastening the side door. "You might have consulted me," he went on. "I'm not such an idiot as some people."
"Why, whatever----"
[Illustration: "ROBERT AND CYRIL HELD THE COW BY THE HORNS."]
"Don't you see? We've jolly well _got_ to keep the cats all night--oh, get down, you furry beasts!--because we've had three wishes out of the old carpet now, and we can't get any more till to-morrow."
The liveliness of Persian mews alone prevented the occurrence of a dismal silence.
Anthea spoke first. "Never mind," she said. "Do you know, I really do think they're quieting down a bit. Perhaps they heard us say milk."
"They can't understand English," said Jane. "You forget they're Persian cats, Panther."
"Well," said Anthea, rather sharply, for she was tired and anxious, "who told you milk wasn't Persian for milk? Lots of English words are just the same in French--at least, I know 'miaw' is, and croquet, and _fiancé_. Oh, pussies, do be quiet! Let's stroke them as hard as we can with both hands, and perhaps they'll stop."
So everyone stroked grey fur till their hands were tired, and as soon as a cat had been stroked enough to make it stop mewing it was pushed gently away, and another mewing mouser was approached by the hands of the strokers. And the noise was really more than half purr when the carpet suddenly appeared in its proper place, and on it, instead of rows of milk-cans or even of milk-jugs, there was a _cow_. Not a Persian cow, either; nor, most fortunately, a musk-cow, if there is such a thing, but a smooth, sleek, dun-coloured Jersey cow, who blinked large, soft eyes at the gaslight and mooed in an amiable, if rather inquiring, manner.
Anthea had always been afraid of cows. But now she tried to be brave.
"Anyway, it can't run after me," she said to herself. "There isn't room for it even to begin to run."
The cow was perfectly placid. She behaved like a strayed duchess till someone brought a saucer for the milk and someone else tried to milk the cow into it. Milking is very difficult. You may think it is easy, but it is not. All the children were by this time strung up to a pitch of heroism that would have been impossible to them in their ordinary condition. Robert and Cyril held the cow by the horns, and when she was quite sure that their end of the cow was secure Jane consented to stand by, ready to hold the cow by the tail, should occasion arise. Anthea, holding the saucer, now advanced towards the cow. She remembered to have heard that cows, when milked by strangers, are susceptible to the soothing influence of the human voice. So, clutching her saucer very tight, she sought for words to whose soothing influence the cow might be susceptible. And her memory, troubled by the events of the night, which seemed to go on and on for ever and ever, refused to help her with any form of words suitable to address a Jersey cow in.
"Poor pussy, then. Lie down, then, good dog, lie down," was all she could think of to say, and she said it. And nobody laughed--the situation, full of grey, mewing cats, was too serious for that.
Then Anthea, with a beating heart, tried to milk the cow. Next moment the cow had knocked the saucer out of her hand and trampled on it with one foot, while with the other three she had walked on a foot each of Robert, Cyril, and Jane.
Jane burst into tears.
"Oh, how much too horrid everything is!" she cried. "Come away. Let's go to bed and leave the horrid cats with the hateful cow. Perhaps somebody will eat somebody else. And serve them right."
They did not go to bed, but had a shivering council in the drawing-room, which smelt of soot--and, indeed, a heap of this lay in the fender. There had been no fire in the room since mother went away, and all the chairs and tables were in the wrong places, and the chrysanthemums were dead, and the water in their pots nearly dried up.
Anthea wrapped the embroidered, woolly sofa-blanket round Jane and herself, while Robert and Cyril had a struggle, silent and brief, but fierce, for the larger share of the fur hearthrug.