"Ernie will tell good Jesus," he said, "and he will make Ernie grow
big--ever so big--to tie the man and put him in a bag like Clayton's
cat."
The burlesque was irresistible, and none the less so that the child was
so direfully in earnest. To his infant imagination no worse disaster
than had befallen Clayton's cat could be devised. This animal, adored by
him, had been bagged and exiled, perhaps drowned for aught I know, for
stealing cheese from the cupboard sacred to Clayton, by that vengeful
potentate, to the despair of Ernie. The idolized kittens, too, which had
followed her, had disappeared with their mother, and days of infant
melancholy ensued, during which the canaries before referred to were
brought as substitutes. The faithful heart still clung to its feline
passion, it was evident, though for weeks the memory of that hapless cat
had been ignored and its name unmentioned.
I believe, after my momentary wrath was over, I should have been content
with the punishment suggested by the child, as sufficient even for Basil
Bainrothe.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 6: The raft on which Miss Lamarque and her family had found
refuge had been swept by the tempest of nearly every soul that clung to
it, after a terrible night of storm and rain, during which that
courageous lady--that Sybarite of society--sustained the fainting souls
of her companions by singing the grand anthems of her Church, in a voice
loud, clear, and sweet as that of a dying swan.
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