CHAPTER VIII

BAN-BAN AND KIKU-SAN FORM AN EMBASSY

Ban-ban and Kiku-san were walking arm and arm, talking earnestly. It had rained, and the streets were muddy, so they had linked the right paw of one through the left arm of the other, and each carried his tail looped over his remaining elbow, to keep it perfectly dry.

“There’s no use in my trying to fight it off any longer, Bannie,” Kiku was saying, earnestly. “I want to go home. I’m not needed here; the city is able to hold its own now; but, if it weren’t, I could be spared from it—I’m not the go-ahead kind which is useful in public affairs. I’ve got to see Lois. I’m sure she hasn’t any other cat to take my place, and worries about me still. I feel as if I couldn’t stay in my fur, I long so to cuddle down in her arms and be petted.” Kiku-san’s voice broke into the saddest mew as he ended, and Ban-Ban looked serious.

“I don’t mind telling you, Kiku, though I wouldn’t have any one else in Purrington know it for the world, but I feel pretty much the same way,” he said. “Of course I’m the sort who can cut up capers, no matter what happens, but I want to see Rob, and I want to see him badly. I’m as sure that he cries nights over me as if I saw him. He thinks I’ve been killed, or got lost where I’ll suffer for food, and be abused—I know Rob! There are times when I wonder if I did right to leave him, but when I see how happy all these poor cats are in Purrington, and how well everything is going, and remember that they had no home, and no kindness until we led them here, then I feel certain again that it was more than right to leave our home. But—to be honest—now the work is done, I want to go back again, just for a visit, anyway.”

“It won’t be a visit for me,” said Kiku-san, with the decision with which very gentle people usually surprise their friends when they are once aroused. “I’m going home to Lois, and I’m going to stay there. I won’t be contented, though, Ban, if I have to leave you behind: come with me!”

“Now wait a bit, Kiku-san, and we’ll try to manage it,” said Ban-Ban. “I don’t want to have the other Purrers feel as though I had deserted them. I’m not much good at patient waiting myself,—that’s more in your line,—but I see that there may something turn up that will let us go back—for a visit; I don’t dare promise to stay—without our seeming to run away. You see, I feel responsible for the Purrers and Purrington, because this city was my idea in the first place.”

“I’ll wait a little longer, then,” sighed Kiku-san. “But it can’t be very long; I can’t stand it.”

He did not have to wait long. When anything is to be, there is always a way made for it.

It began to be whispered through Purrington that, after all, cats were not quite fitted to live entirely without human help. The houses that the cat carpenters had put up were not warm enough for winter; there were several matters on which the Purrers felt the need of help and advice. “If there were any human beings whom we could get to come here, straighten out these trifles, and act as our friends and advisers, who could be trusted to go between Purrington and the human city, looking after us and never betraying us, we should be better off,” they said.

The question was where to find such friends, how to bring them to Purrington, and whom to select for such an important trust.

“There are plenty of people who would do it faithfully,” said Tommy Traddles. “When I was a kitten I was taken in from the street by the kindest hands, and cared for ever after. My law student, my first friend, would have stood by us and helped us to the last hour of his life.”

“When I was only four weeks old I was found by a lady in the worst, poorest part of the city,” said Bidelia. “She put me under her coat and carried me all the afternoon on several business calls which she had to make, although I cried dreadfully. When she got me home she cared for me like a baby; were it not for her I should not be here to-day. I would trust that friend of cats with our secrets.”

“You see,” added Tommy Traddles, with his customary wisdom, “cats have lived so long among people that they have become dependent upon them. I think it would be most wise to secure for ourselves such a friend as Bidelia and I have known. But these two are beyond our reach. The question is: Whom should we select, and where should we find these friends?”

Then up rose Kiku-san, his whiskers quivering with eagerness. “I can tell you,” he cried. “The little girl whom I owned, and whose love I miss more than I can say, is the very one for this position. She goes out of her way, and bears all sorts of inconvenience to help cats. She has such a tender heart that the sight of abuse of one of us makes her half-ill with grief and pity. Get Lois to help you, Purrers; she would die rather than betray you.”

“And Rob!” added Ban-Ban, springing up as Kiku-san sat down. “He is a little fellow, only eight, but he is as brave as a lion when it comes to fighting for any abused animal. He has a good mother, who has taught him that we are all one big family, the human beings, and all the dumb creatures—as they call us, because they don’t understand our language! He touches any of us as gently as a paw without claws can touch, and he plays with us as well as a kitten could—better, because he can think of more things to do. He is a brave boy, the real sort of brave boy. They are always kind, you know, and don’t pretend to be brave by doing cowardly things, such as hurting a helpless creature. I’ve heard Rob tell other boys that it was manly to be gentle, and cowardly to be cruel, because a true man was a _gentle_-man! There’s his mother for you again; that’s what she teaches him! Rob’s the little boy I owned. You get Rob and Lois both on your side, Purrers, and you’ll bless the day Kiku-san and I told you about them.”

’Clipsy arose as Ban-Ban sat down, shaking his head gravely. “This little Lois may be all right,” he said. “Girls are usually more or less good to us, but a boy! I’m doubtful of the wisdom of trusting a boy.”

“There are boys and boys,” said Tommy Traddles, mildly. “The right sort of boy is a brave fellow, and so must be a kind one, as Ban-Ban has said, and that sort is trustworthy, one on whom you can depend. Of course, friends and Purrers, you can rely on Ban-Ban’s judgment of the boy he owned and lived with from his kittenhood. But if you need further witnesses, let me add that Madam Laura, Bidelia, and I have known both Lois and Rob for a long time, and they are both the very ones to help us carry on our city, and be our friends through the winter that lies before us. They are both all, and more than all, that Kiku-san and Ban-Ban have said they were.”

Madam Laura and Bidelia purred their entire assent to this statement.

“Very well, then,” said ’Clipsy, “what are we to do about it, if they are such good children and good friends to cats? How shall we let them know about us, and get them to stand by us?”

Tommy Traddles and Ban-Ban had never cared much for each other, but Tommy Traddles proved at this moment how superior his nature was to personal considerations of mere fancy. That wise cat, whose thoughtful gaze saw through most cats with whom he was in close contact, had seen that Ban-Ban and Kiku-san were longing for their beloved children, and he arose now to answer ’Clipsy’s question.

“I move that Ban-Ban and Kiku-san be appointed an embassy”—the Purrers gasped at this hard word—“to wait on Lois and Rob in their own homes. They will be able, I am sure, to get the children to follow them here, and when they come we shall be able to talk to them, for you know that when they pass the gate of Purrington they will at once understand our speech. Will the Purrers who are in favour of asking Ban-Ban and Kiku-san to return to their old homes, and to bring Lois and Rob to visit us here, please signify it by holding up their right paws and saying: ‘Mew!’”

A chorus of mews filled the air, and right paws waved like a grove of pussy-willows.

“Contrary-minded, spit!” said Doctor Traddles, and waited. Not a spit was heard.

“It is a vote!” announced the Doctor. “Ban-Ban and Kiku-san, you are appointed to go to the city, the human city, as an embassy from Pussy-Cat Town, and bring here Lois and Rob to act as our advisers and friends henceforth. You will set out at your earliest convenience.”

Ban-Ban ran up to Tommy Traddles and shook his paw. “I never sufficiently appreciated you, Tommy,” he said, “but I see that you have tried to give Kiku and me happiness, and you have succeeded. Count me your devoted friend from this day forth.”

And Kiku-san came and rubbed his cheek against Tommy’s with his soft coo, which at once embarrassed the Doctor dreadfully, and pleased him beyond words.

There was a great flurry of preparation in Purrington; it was exciting to all the Purrers to feel that two among them, and one of these their founder, were returning to the world they had forsaken. Many were the messages with which Ban-Ban and Kiku-san were charged; many the errands they were asked to do, should time and chance allow them.

Before starting, Kiku-san had to wash his beautiful thick white suit, for in Purrington it was the rule that each one should do his own washing.

Bidelia and Madam Laura put up a lunch for the travellers, although the distance was not great, and Wutz-Butz tried to teach them a certain stroke with the right paw, followed instantly by one of another sort with the left, which he knew, and which he said would be sufficient defence against any attack which might be made upon them on the way.

But Kiku-san refused to entertain the idea of fighting, even in self-defence, and Ban-Ban said he’d risk his four slender, fast legs to take him out of reach of danger, and so Wutz-Butz had to give up his purpose of teaching them the noble art of self-defence, to his own great disappointment.

Purrington gave its ambassadors a farewell dinner. Mr. S. Katz furnished it with his most delicious meats, and all the ladies in town cooked for it. It was such a tremendous dinner that the idea of carrying a luncheon on their journey seemed really funny to Ban-Ban and Kiku-san; they ate so much at the dinner that they could not fancy themselves ever again being hungry.

When the banquet ended all the cats rose from their chairs, and raising their glasses of distilled catnip high in the air, and keeping time with their left paws on the table to the gliding air of “Flow Gently, Sweet Afton,” sang this farewell song:

“Go forth to your old friends, dear cats, from the new, For Purrington sends you, an embassy true; We hope that for your sakes the children may be The guide and the stay of our Pussy city. Then hasten, O Ban-Ban, your steps, for you know How blank our days and our nights when you go, For white Kiku-san and our Founder Maltese Are Purrington’s glory, so hasten back—please!

“Delay not, though tempted with cushions of silk; The world’s cream is rich, but we give you love’s milk, And better plain fare, when it’s seasoned with love, Than banquets of kings, whom a cat’s look may prove. Then speed ye in going, but speed ye more fast When your whiskers are pointed due homeward at last; Defeated, triumphant, we’ll hail your return; With love for you, dear cats, our feline hearts burn.”