The Terrible Twins Part 9

"You're always bothering about those silly old accounts!" said Erebus sharply.

She resented having had to enter in their penny ledger the items of their expenditure with conspicuous neatness under his critical eye.

"Well, I don't think the kittens ought to go down in the accounts.

Aunt Amelia is so used to cats' homes that are given their cats. She's told me all about it: how people write and ask for their cats to be taken in."

"_I_ don't want them to go down. It makes all the less accounts to keep," said Erebus readily.

"Well, that's settled," said the Terror cheerfully.

Once more the Twins rode round the countryside, spreading abroad the tidings of their munificent offer of threepence a head for kittens who could just lap.

But kittens did not immediately flow in; and the complaints of the impatient Erebus grew louder and louder. There was no doubt that she loved a grievance; and even more she loved making no secret of that grievance to those about her. Since she could only discuss this grievance with the Terror and Wiggins, they heard enough about it.

Indeed, her complaints were at last no small factor in her patient brother's resolve to take action; and he called her and Wiggins to a council.

He opened the discussion by saying: "We've got to have kittens, or cats. We can't have any pocket-money for 'overseering' till there's something to overseer."

"And that splendid cats' home we've made stopping empty all the time,"

said Erebus in her most bitterly aggrieved tone.

"I don't mind that. I'm sick of hearing about it," said the Terror coldly. "But I do want pocket-money; and besides, Aunt Amelia will soon be wanting to know what's happening to the home; and she'll make a fuss if there aren't any cats in it. So we must have cats."

"Well, I tell you what it is: we must take cats. There are cats all over the country; and when we're out bicycling, a good way from home, we could easily pick up one or two at a time and bring them back with us. We ought to be able to get four a day, counting kittens; and in eight days the home would be full and two over."

"And we should be prosecuted for stealing them," said the Terror coldly.

"But they'd be ever so much better off in the home, properly looked after and fed," protested Erebus.

"That wouldn't make any difference. No; it's no good trying to get them that way," said the Terror in a tone of finality.

"Well, they won't come of themselves," said Erebus.

"They would with valerian," said Wiggins.

"Who's Valerian?" said Erebus.

"It isn't a who. It's a drug at the chemist's," said Wiggins. "I've been talking to my father about cats a good deal lately, and he says if you put valerian on a rag and drag it along the ground, cats will follow it for miles."

"Your father seems to know everything--such a lot of useful things as well as higher mathematics," said the Terror.

"That's why he has a European reputation," said Wiggins; and he spurned the earth.

That afternoon the Twins bicycled into Rowington and bought a bottle of the enchanting drug. Just before they reached the village, on their way home, the Terror produced a rag with a piece of string tied to it, poured some valerian on it and trailed it after his bicycle through the village to his garden gate.

The result demonstrated the accuracy of the scientific knowledge of the father of Wiggins. All that evening and far into the night twelve cats fought clamorously round the house of the Dangerfields.

The next day the Terror turned the cats' home into a cat-trap. He cut a hole in the bottom of its door large enough to admit a cat and fitted it with a hanging flap which a cat would readily push open from the outside, but lacked the intelligence to raise from the inside. He was late finis.h.i.+ng it, and went from it to his dinner.

They had just come to the end of the simple meal when they heard a ring at the back door; and old Sarah came in to say that Polly Cotteril had come from the village with some kittens. The Twins excused themselves politely to their mother, and hurried to the kitchen to find that Polly had brought no less than five small kittens in a basket.

Forthwith the Terror filled a saucer with milk and applied the lapping test. Four of the kittens lapped the milk somewhat feebly, but they lapped. The fifth would not lap. It only mewed. Therefore the Terror took only four of the kittens, giving Polly a s.h.i.+lling for them. The fifth he returned to her, bidding her bring it back when it could lap.

They took the four kittens down to the cats' home; and since they were so small, they put them in one hutch for warmth, with a saucer of milk to satisfy their hunger during the night.

"Now we've got these kittens, we needn't bother about getting cats,"

said the Terror as they returned to the house. "And I'm glad it is kittens and not cats. Kittens eat less."

"Then you've had all the trouble of making that little door for nothing," said Erebus.

"It's an emergency exit--like the theaters have--only it's an entrance," said the Terror. "But thank goodness, we've begun at last; now we can have salaries for 'overseering'."

During the course of the next week they added seven more small kittens to their stock; and it seemed good to the Terror to inform Lady Ryehampton that the home was already constructed and in process of occupation. Accordingly Erebus wrote a letter, by no means devoid of enthusiasm, informing her that it already held eleven inmates, "saved from the awful death of drowning." Lady Ryehampton replied promptly in a spirit of warm gratification that they had been so quick starting it.

But with eleven inmates in the home the Twins presently found themselves grappling earnestly with the food problem and the account-book.

The Terror was not unfitted for financial operations. Till they were six years old the Twins had lived luxuriously at Dangerfield Hall, in Monmouth, with toys beyond the dreams of Alnaschar. Then their father had fallen into the hands of a firm of gambling stock-brokers, had along with them lost nearly all his money, and presently died, leaving Mrs. Dangerfield with a very small income indeed. All the while since his death it had been a hard struggle to make both ends meet; and the Twins had had many a lesson in learning to do without the desires of their hearts.

But their desires were strong; the wits of the Terror were not weak; and taking one month with another the Twins had as much pocket-money as the bulk of the children of the well-to-do. But it did not come in the way of a regular allowance; it had to be obtained by diplomacy or work; and the processes of getting it had given the Terror the liveliest interest in financial matters. He was resolved that the cats' home and the wages of "overseering" should last as long as possible.

But it soon grew clear to him that, with milk at threepence halfpenny a quart, the kittens would soon drink themselves out of house and home.

He discussed the matter with Erebus and Wiggins; and they agreed with him that milk spelled ruin. But they could see no way of reducing the price of milk; and they were sure that it was the necessary food for growing kittens.

Their faces were somewhat gloomy at the end of the discussion; and a heavy silence had fallen on them. Then of a sudden the face of the Terror brightened; and he said with a touch of triumph in his tone: "I've got it; we'll feed them on skim-milk."

"They feed pigs on skim-milk, not kittens," said Erebus scornfully.

That was indeed the practise at Little Deeping. b.u.t.ter-making was its chief industry; and the skim-milk went to the pigs.

"If it fattens pigs, it will fatten kittens," said the Terror firmly.

"But how can we get it? They don't sell it about here," said Erebus.

"And you know what they are: if Granfeytner didn't sell skim-milk, n.o.body's going to sell skim-milk to-day."

"Oh, yes: old Stubbs will sell it," said the Terror confidently.

"Old Stubbs! But he hates us worse than any one!" cried Erebus.

"Oh, yes; he doesn't like us. But he's awfully keen on money; every one says so. And he won't care whose money he gets so long as he gets it. Come on; we'll go and talk to him about it," said the Terror.

The Twins went firmly across the common to the house of farmer Stubbs and knocked resolutely. The maid, who was well aware that her master and the Twins were not on friendly terms, admitted them with some hesitation. The Twins had never entered the farmer's house before, though they had often entered his orchard; and they felt slightly uncomfortable. They found the parlor into which they were shown uncommonly musty.

Presently Mr. Stubbs came to them, pulling doubtfully at the Newgate fringe that ran bristling under his chin, with a look of deep suspicion in his small, ferrety, red-rimmed eyes. Even when he learned that they had come on business, his face did not brighten till the Terror incidentally dropped a sovereign on the floor and talked of cash payments. Then his face shone; he made the admission, cautiously, that he might be induced to sell skim-milk; and then they came to the discussion of prices. Mr. Stubbs wanted to see skim-milk in quarts; the Terror could only see it in pails; and this difference of point of view nearly brought the negotiations to an abrupt end twice. But the Terror's suavity prevented a complete break; and in the end they struck a bargain that he should have as much skim-milk as he required at threepence halfpenny the pailful.

In the course of the next fortnight they admitted twelve more kittens to the home; and the Terror had yet another idea. Milk alone seemed an insufficient diet for them; and he approached the village baker on the matter of stale bread. There were more negotiations; and in the end the Terror made a contract with the baker for a supply of it at nearly his own price. Now he fed the kittens on bread and milk; they throve on it; and it went further than plain milk.

The Twins enjoyed but little leisure. They had been busy filling certain shelves, which they had fixed up above the cat-hutches, with the best apples the more peaceful and spa.r.s.ely populated parts of the countryside afforded. But what spare time he had the Terror devoted to a great feat of painting. He painted in white letters on a black board:--

LADY RYEHAMPTON'S CATS' HOME