[Illustration: "ROBERT AND CYRIL HAD A STRUGGLE FOR THE LARGER SHARE OF THE FUR HEARTHRUG."]
"It is most truly awful," said Anthea. "And I _am_ so tired. Let's let the cats loose."
"And the cow, perhaps?" said Cyril. "The police would find us at once. That cow would stand at the gate and mew--I mean moo--to come in. And so would the cats. No; I see quite well what we've got to do. We must put them in baskets and leave them on people's doorsteps, like orphan foundlings."
"We've got three baskets, counting mother's work one," said Jane, brightening.
"And there are nearly two hundred cats," said Anthea, "besides the cow, and it would have to be a different-sized basket for her. And then I don't know how you'd carry it, and you'd never find a doorstep big enough to put it on, except the church one, and----"
"Oh, well," said Cyril, "if you simply _make_ difficulties----"
"I'm with you," said Robert. "Don't fuss about the cow, Panther. It's simply _got_ to stay the night, and I'm sure I've read that the cow is a remunerating creature, and that means it will sit still and think for hours. The carpet can take it away in the morning. And as for baskets, we'll do them up in dusters or pillow-cases, or bath-towels. Come on, Squirrel. You girls can be out of it, if you like."
His tone was full of contempt, but Jane and Anthea were too tired and desperate to care; even being "out of it," which at other times they could not have borne, now seemed quite a comfort. They snuggled down in the sofa-blanket and Cyril threw the fur hearthrug over them.
"Ah," he said, "that's all women are fit for--to keep safe and warm while the men do the work and run dangers and risks and things."
"I'm not," said Anthea; "you know I'm not."
But Cyril was gone.
It was warm under the blanket and the hearthrug, and Jane snuggled up close to her sister, and Anthea cuddled Jane closely and kindly, and in a sort of dream they heard the rise of a wave of mewing as Robert opened the door of the nursery. They heard the booted search for baskets in the back kitchen. They heard the side door open and close, and they knew that each brother had gone out with at least one cat. Anthea's last thought was that it would take at least all night to get rid of one hundred and ninety-nine cats by twos. There would be eighty-nine journeys of two cats each, and one cat over. "I almost think we might keep the one cat over," said Anthea; "I don't seem to care for cats just now, but I dare say I shall again some day." And she fell asleep. Jane also was sleeping.
It was Jane who awoke with a start to find Anthea still asleep. As in the act of awakening she kicked her sister, she wondered idly why they should have gone to bed in their boots, but the next moment she remembered where they were.
There was a sound of muffled, shuffled feet on the stairs. Like the heroine of the classic poem, Jane "thought it was the boys," and, as she now felt quite wide awake and not nearly so tired as before, she crept gently from Anthea's side and followed the footsteps. They went down into the basement. The cats, which seemed to have fallen into the sleep of exhaustion, awoke at the sound of the approaching footsteps and mewed piteously. Jane was at the foot of the stairs before she saw that it was not her brothers whose coming had roused her and the cats, but a burglar. She knew he was a burglar at once, because he wore a fur cap and a red and black charity-check comforter, and he had no business where he was.
If you had been stood in Jane's shoes you would no doubt have run away in them, appealing to the police and neighbours with horrid screams. But Jane knew better. She had read a great many nice stories about burglars, as well as some affecting pieces of poetry, and she knew that no burglar will ever hurt a little girl if he meets one when burgling. Indeed, in all the cases Jane had read of his burglarishness was almost at once forgotten in the interest he felt in the little girl's artless prattle. So if Jane hesitated for a moment before addressing the burglar it was only because she could not at once think of any remark sufficiently prattling and artless to make a beginning. In the stories and the affecting poetry the child could never speak plainly, though it always looked old enough to in the pictures. And Jane could not make up her mind to lisp and "talk baby," even to a burglar. And while she hesitated he softly opened the nursery door and went in.
Jane followed--just in time to see him sit down flat on the floor, scattering cats as a stone thrown into a pool splashes water.
She closed the door softly and stood there, still wondering whether she _could_ bring herself to say: "What's 'oo doing here, Mithter Wobber?" and whether any other kind of talk would do.
Then she heard the burglar draw a long breath, and he spoke:--
"It's a judgment," he said. "Oh, 'ere's a thing to 'appen to a chap! Cats an' cats an' cats. Let alone the cow. If she ain't the moral of the old man's Daisy! She's a dream out of when I was a lad; I don't mind 'er so much. 'Ere, Daisy, Daisy!"
The cow turned and looked at him.
"_She's_ all right," he went on; "sort of company, too. But them cats--oh, take 'em away, take 'em away! Oh, take 'em away!"
"Burglar," said Jane, close behind him, and he started convulsively and turned on her a blank face whose pale lips trembled--"I can't take those cats away."
"Lor'!" exclaimed the man; "if 'ere ain't another on 'em. Are you real, miss, or something I'll wake up from presently?"
"I am quite real," said Jane, relieved to find that a lisp was not needed to make the burglar understand her. "And so," she added, "are the cats."
"Then send for the police, send for the police, and I'll go quiet. If you ain't no realler than them cats I'm done. Send for the police. I'll go quiet. One thing, there'd not be room for 'arf them cats in no cell as ever _I_ see."
He ran his fingers through his hair, which was short, and his eyes wandered wildly round the roomful of cats.
"Burglar," said Jane, kindly and softly, "if you didn't like cats, what did you come here for?"
[Illustration: "'IT'S A JUDGMENT,' HE SAID. 'OH, 'ERE'S A THING TO 'APPEN TO A CHAP!'"]
"Send for the police," was the unfortunate criminal's only reply. "I'd rather you would--honest, I'd rather."
"I daren't," said Jane; "and, besides, I've no one to send. I hate the police. I wish he'd never been born."
"You've a feeling 'art, miss," said the burglar. "But them cats is really a little bit too thick."
"Look here," said Jane. "I won't call the police. And I am quite a real little girl, though I talk older than the kind you have met before when you've been doing your burglings. And they _are_ real cats--and they want real milk--and--didn't you say the cow was like somebody's Daisy that you used to know? Well, then, perhaps you know how to milk cows?"
"Perhaps I does," was the burglar's cautious rejoinder.
"Then," said Jane, "if you will _only_ milk ours, you don't know how we shall always love you."
The burglar replied that loving was all very well.
"If those cats only had a good, long, wet, thirsty drink of milk," Jane went on, with eager persuasion, "they'll lie down and go to sleep as likely as not, and then the police won't come back. But if they go on mewing like this he will, and then I don't know what'll become of us or you either."
This argument seemed to decide the criminal. Jane fetched the wash-bowl from the sink and he prepared to milk the cow. At this instant boots were heard on the stairs.
"It's all up," said the man, desperately. "This 'ere's a plant. _'Ere's_ the police." He made as if to open the window and leap from it.
"It's all right, I tell you," whispered Jane, in anguish. "I'll say you're a friend of mine, or the good clergyman called in, or my uncle, or _anything_--only do, do, do milk the cow. Oh, _don't_ go--oh--oh, thank goodness, it's only the boys!"
It was; and their entrance had awakened Anthea, who, with her brothers, now crowded through the doorway. The man looked about him as a rat looks round a trap.
"This is a friend of mine," said Jane. "He's just called in, and he's going to milk the cow for us. _Isn't_ it good and kind of him?"
She winked at the others, and though they did not understand they played up loyally.
"How do?" said Cyril. "Very glad to meet you. Don't let us interrupt the milking."
The burglar began to milk the cow, and the others went to get things to put the milk in, for it was now spurting and foaming in the wash-bowl, and the cats had ceased from mewing and were crowding round the cow, with expressions of hope and anticipation on their whiskered faces.
"We can't get rid of any more cats," said Cyril, as he and his sisters piled a tray high with saucers and soup-plates and platters and pie-dishes; "the police nearly got us as it was. Not the same one--a much stronger sort. He thought it really was a foundling orphan we'd got. If it hadn't been for me throwing the two bags of cat slap in his eye and hauling Robert over a railing, and lying like mice under a laurel bush--well, it's jolly lucky I'm a good shot, that's all. He pranced off when he'd got the cat-bags off his face--thought we'd bolted. And here we are."