Chapter 4

"The Witch's Head" attained the dignity of being pirated in America, and in England went out of print in a few weeks, but no argument that I could use would induce my publishers to re-issue it in a one-volume edition. The risk was too great, they said. Then it was I came to the conclusion that I would abandon the making of books. The work was very hard, and when put to the test of experience the glamour that surrounds this occupation vanished. I did not care much for the publicity it involved, and, like most young authors, I failed to appreciate being sneered at by anonymous critics who happened not to care for what I wrote, and whom I had no opportunity of answering. It is true that then, as now, I liked the work for its own sake. Indeed, I have always thought that literature would be a charming profession if its conditions allowed of the depositing of manuscripts, when completed, in a drawer, there to languish in obscurity, or of their private publication only. But I could not afford myself these luxuries. I was too modest to hope for any renown worth having, and for the rest the game seemed scarcely worth the candle. I had published a history and two novels. On the history I had lost fifty pounds, on the first novel I had made ten pounds, and on the second fifty; net profit on the three, ten pounds, which in the case of a man with other occupations and duties did not appear to be an adequate return for the labour involved. But I was not destined to escape thus from the toils of romance. One day I chanced to read a clever article in favour of boys' books, and it occurred to me that I might be able to do as well as others in that line. I was working at the Bar at the time, but in my spare evenings, more for amusement than from any other reason, I entered on the literary adventure that ended in the appearance of "King Solomon's Mines." This romance has proved very successful, although three firms, including my own publishers, refused even to consider it. But as it can scarcely be called one of my first books, I shall not speak of it here.

In conclusion, I will tell a moving tale, that it may be a warning to young authors for ever. After my publishers declined to issue "The Witch's Head" in a six-shilling edition, I tried many others without success, and at length in my folly signed an agreement with a firm since deceased. Under this document the firm in question agreed to bring out "Dawn" and "The Witch's Head" in a two-shilling edition, and generously to remunerate me with a third share in the profits realised, if any. In return for this concession, I on my part undertook to allow the said firm to republish any novel that I might write, for a period of five years from the date of the agreement, in a two-shilling form, and on the same third-profit terms. Of course, so soon as the success of "King Solomon's Mines" was established, I received a polite letter from the publishers in question, asking when they might expect to republish that romance at two shillings. Then the matter came under the consideration of lawyers and other skilled persons, with the result that it appeared that, if the Courts took a strict view of the agreement, ruin stared me in the face, so far as my literary affairs were concerned. To begin with, either by accident or design, this artful document was so worded that, _prima facie_, the contracting publisher had a right to place his cheap edition on the market whenever it might please him to do so, subject only to the payment of a third of the profit, to be assessed by himself, which practically would have meant nothing at all. How could I expect to dispose of work subject to such a legal "servitude." For five long years I was a slave to the framer of the "hanging" clause of the agreement. Things looked black indeed, when, thanks to the diplomacy of my agent, and to a fortunate change in the _personnel_ of the firm to which I was bound, I avoided disaster. The fatal agreement was cancelled, and in consideration of my release I undertook to write two books upon a moderate royalty. Thus, then, did I escape out of bondage. To be just, it was my own fault that I should ever have been sold into it, but authors are proverbially guileless when they are anxious to publish their books, and a piece of printed paper with a few additions written in a neat hand looks innocent enough. Now no such misfortunes need happen, for the Authors' Society is ready and anxious to protect them from themselves and others, but in those days it did not exist.

This is the history of how I drifted into the writing of books. If it saves one beginner so inexperienced and unfriended as I was in those days from putting his hand to a "hanging" agreement under any circumstances whatsoever, it will not have been set out in vain.

The advice that I give to would-be authors, if I may presume to offer it, is to think for a long while before they enter at all upon a career so hard and hazardous, but having entered on it, not to be easily cast down. There are great virtues in perseverance, even though critics sneer and publishers prove unkind.

TOLD BY THE COLONEL.

XII.

THE CAT'S REVENGE.

BY W. L. ALDEN.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY R. JACK.

We had been discussing the Darwinian hypothesis, and the Colonel had maintained a profound silence, which was sufficient evidence that he did not believe in the development of man from the lower animals. Some one, however, asked him plumply his opinion of Darwinianism, and he sententiously replied, "Darned nonsense."

Feeling that this view of the matter possibly merited expansion, the Colonel caused his chair to assume its customary oratorical attitude on its two rear legs, and began to discourse.

"There are some things," he remarked, "which do look as if there might be a grain of truth in this monkey theory. For instance, when I was in France I was pretty nearly convinced that the monkey is the connecting link between man and the Frenchmen, but after all there is no proof of it. That's what's the matter with Darwinianism. When you produce a man who can remember that his grandfather was a monkey, or when you show me a monkey that can produce papers to prove that he is my second cousin, I'll believe all Darwin said on the subject, but as the thing stands I've nothing but Darwin's word to prove that men and monkeys are near relations. So far as I can learn, Darwin didn't know as much about animals as a man ought to know who undertakes to invent a theory about them. He never was intimate with dogs, and he never drove an army mule. He had a sort of bowing acquaintance with monkeys and a few other animals of no particular standing in the community, but he couldn't even understand a single animal language. Now, if he had gone to work, and learned to read and write, and speak the monkey language, as that American professor that you were just speaking of has done, he might have been able to give us some really valuable information.

"Do I believe that animals talk? I don't simply believe it, I know it. When I was a young man I had a good deal to do with animals, and I learned to understand the cat language just as well as I understood English. It's an easy language when once you get the hang of it, and from what I hear of German the two are considerably alike. You look as if you didn't altogether believe me, though why you should doubt that a man can learn cat language when the world is full of men that pretend to have learned German, and nobody calls their word in question, I don't precisely see.

"Of course, I don't pretend to understand all the cat dialects. For example, I don't know a word of the Angora dialect, and can only understand a sentence here and there of the tortoiseshell dialect, but so far as good, pure standard cat language goes, it's as plain as print to me to-day, though I haven't paid any attention to it for forty years. I don't want you to understand that I ever spoke it. I always spoke English when I was talking with cats. They all understand English as well as you do. They pick it up just as a child picks up a language from hearing it spoken.

"Forty years ago I was a young man, and, like most young men, I fancied that I was in love with a young woman of our town. There isn't the least doubt in my mind that I should have married her if I had not known the cat language. She afterwards married a man whom she took away to Africa with her as a missionary. I knew him well, and he didn't want to go to Africa. Said he had no call to be a missionary, and that all he wanted was to live in a Christian country where he could go and talk with the boys in the bar-room evenings. But his wife carried him off, and it's my belief that if I had married her she would have made me turn missionary, or pirate, or anything else that she thought best. I shall never cease to be grateful to Thomas Aquinas for saving me from that woman.

"This was the way of it. I was living in a little cottage that belonged to my uncle, and that he let me have rent free on condition that I should take care of it, and keep the grounds in an attractive state until he could sell it. I had an old negro housekeeper and two cats. One of them, Martha Washington by name, was young and handsome, and about as bright a cat as I ever knew. She had a strong sense of humour, too, which is unusual with cats, and when something amused her she would throw back her head and open her mouth wide, and laugh a silent laugh that was as hearty and rollicking as a Methodist parson's laugh when he hears a grey-haired joke at a negro minstrel show. Martha was perhaps the most popular cat in the town, and there was scarcely a minute in the day when there wasn't some one of her admirers in the back yard. As for serenades, she had three or four every night that it didn't rain. There was a quartette club formed by four first-class feline voices, and the club used to give Martha and me two or three hours of music three times a week. I used sometimes to find as many as six or seven old boots in the back yard of a morning that had been contributed by enthusiastic neighbours. As for society, Martha Washington was at the top of the heap. There wasn't a more fashionable cat in the whole State of Ohio--I was living in Ohio at the time--and in spite of it all she was as simple and unaffected in her ways as if she had been born and bred in a Quaker meeting-house.

"One afternoon Martha was giving a four o'clock milk on the verandah next to my room. I always gave her permission to give that sort of entertainment whenever she wanted to, for the gossip of her friends used to be very amusing to me. Among the guests that afternoon was Susan's--that was the young lady I wanted to marry--Maltese cat. Now this cat had always pretended to be very fond of me, and Susan often said that her cat never made a mistake in reading character, and that the cat's approval of me was equivalent to a first-class Sunday-school certificate of moral character. I didn't care anything about the cat myself, for somehow I didn't place any confidence in her professions. There was an expression about her tail which, to my mind, meant that she was insincere and treacherous. The Maltese cat had finished her milk when the conversation drifted around to the various mistresses of the cats, and presently someone spoke of Susan. Then the Maltese began to say things about Susan that made my blood boil. It was not only what she said but what she insinuated, and, according to her, Susan was one of the meanest and most contemptible women in the whole United States. I stood it as long as I could, and then I got up and said to Martha Washington, 'I think your Maltese friend is needed at her home, and the sooner she goes the better if she doesn't want to be helped home with a club.' That was enough. The Maltese, who was doing up her back fur when I spoke, stopped, looked at me as if she could tear me into pieces, and then flounced out of the house without saying a word. I understood that there was an end to her pretence of friendship for me, and that henceforth I should have an enemy in Susan's house who might, perhaps, be able to do me a good deal of harm.

"The next time I called to see Susan the Maltese was in the room, and she instantly put up her back and tail and swore at me as if I was a Chinaman on the look out for material for a stolen dinner. 'What can be the matter with poor pussy?' said Susan. 'She seems to be so terribly afraid of you all of a sudden. I hope it doesn't mean that you have been doing something that she doesn't approve of.' I didn't make any reply to this insinuation, except to say that the cat might perhaps be going mad, but this didn't help me any with Susan, who was really angry at the idea that her cat could be capable of going mad.

"The same sort of thing happened every time I went to the house. The cat was always in the room, and always expressed in the plainest way the opinion that I was a thief and a murderer, and an enemy of the temperance society. When I asked her what she meant to do, she would give me no reply except a fresh oath, or other bad language. Threats had no effect on her, for she knew that I could not touch her in Susan's house, and she didn't intend that I should catch her outside of the house. Nothing was clearer than that the Maltese was bound to make a quarrel between me and Susan in revenge for what I had said at Martha's four o'clock milk.

"Meanwhile Susan began to take the thing very seriously, and hinted that the cat's opposition to me might be a providential warning against me. 'I never knew her to take such a prejudice against anyone before,' she said, 'except against that converted Jew who afterwards turned out to be a burglar, and nearly murdered poor dear Mr. Higby, the Baptist preacher, the night he broke into Mr. Higby's house and stole all his hams.' Once when I did manage to give the Maltese a surreptitious kick, and she yelled as if she was half-killed, Susan said, 'I am really afraid I shall have to ask you to leave us now. Poor pussy's nerves are so thoroughly upset that I must devote all my energies to soothing her. I do hope she is mistaken in her estimate of you.' This was not very encouraging, and I saw clearly that if the Maltese kept up her opposition the chances that Susan would marry me were not worth a rush.

"Did I tell you that I had a large grey cat by the name of Thomas Aquinas? He was in some respects the most remarkable cat I ever met. Most people considered him rather a dull person, but among cats he was conceded to have a colossal mind. Cats would come from miles away to ask his advice about things. I don't mean such trifling matters as his views on mice-catching--which, by the way, is a thing that has very little interest for most cats--or his opinion of the best way in which to get a canary bird through the bars of a cage. They used to consult him on matters of the highest importance, and the opinions that he used to give would have laid over those of Benjamin Franklin himself. Why Martha Washington told me that Thomas Aquinas knew more about bringing up kittens than the oldest and most experienced feline matron that she had ever known. As for common sense, Thomas Aquinas was just a solid chunk of it, as you might say, and I got into the habit of consulting him whenever I wanted a good, safe, cautious opinion. He would see at a glance where the trouble was, and would give me advice that no lawyer could have beaten, no matter how big a fee he might have charged.

"Well! I went home from Susan's house, and I said to Thomas Aquinas, 'Thomas,' for he was one of those cats that you would no more have called 'Tom' than you would call Mr. Gladstone 'Bill'--'Thomas,' I said, 'I want you to come with me to Miss Susan's and tell that Maltese beast that if she doesn't quit her practice of swearing at me whenever I come into the room it will be the worse for her.'

"'That's easy enough,' said Thomas. 'I know one or two little things about that cat that would not do to be told, and she knows that I know them. Never you fear but that I can shut her up in a moment. I heard that she was going about bragging that she would get square with you for something you said to her one day, but I didn't feel called upon to interfere without your express approval.'

"The next day Thomas and I strolled over to Susan's, and, as luck would have it, we were shown into her reception room before she came down stairs. The Maltese cat was in the room, and began her usual game of being filled with horror at the sight of such a hardened wretch as myself. Of course, Thomas Aquinas took it up at once, and the two had a pretty hot argument. Now Thomas, in spite of his colossal mind, was a quick-tempered cat, and he was remarkably free spoken when he was roused. One word led to another, and presently the Maltese flew at Thomas, and for about two minutes that room was so thick with fur that you could hardly see the fight. Of course, there could have been only one end to the affair. My cat weighed twice what the Maltese weighed, and after a few rounds he had her by the neck, and never let go until he had killed her. I was just saying 'Hooray! Thomas!' when Susan came into the room.

"I pass over what she said. Its general sense was that a man who encouraged dumb animals to fight, and who brought a great savage brute into her house to kill her sweet little pussy in her own parlour, wasn't fit to live. She would listen to no explanations, and when I said that Thomas had called at my request to reason with the Maltese about her unkind conduct towards me, Susan said that my attempt to turn an infamous outrage into a stupid joke made the matter all the worse, and that she must insist that I and my prize fighting beast should leave her house at once and never enter it again.

"So you see that if it had not been that I understood what the Maltese cat said at Martha Washington's milk party, I should probably never have quarrelled with either Susan or her cat, and should now have been a missionary in Central Africa, if I hadn't blown my brains out, or taken to drink. I have often thought that the man Susan did marry might have been saved if he had known the cat language in time, and had made the acquaintance of the Maltese."

The Colonel paused, and presently I asked him if he really expected us to believe his story. "Why not?" he replied. "It isn't any stiffer than Darwin's yarn about our being descended from monkeys. You believe that on the word of a man you never saw, and I expect you to believe my story that I understand the cat language on my unsupported word. Perhaps the story is a little tough, but if you are going in for science you shouldn't let your credulity be backed down by any story."

"LIONS IN THEIR DENS."

J. L. TOOLE.

BY RAYMOND BLATHWAYT.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY LOUIS GUNNIS.

(_Photographs by Messrs. Fradelle & Young, and Falk, of Sydney._)