“It may have been midnight, or one o’clock, or two, when I was awakened from a pleasant slumber, by a babel of unearthly sounds in the rear of my chamber.  I knew what those sounds meant, for they had cost me fuel enough to have lasted a month.  I raised the window, and there, as of old, right opposite me, on the north end of that long shed, was an assemblage of all the cats in that part of the town.  I won’t be precise as to numbers, but it is my honest belief that there was less than three hundred of them; and if one among them all was silent, I did not succeed in discovering which it was.  There was that same old Maltese, with his saucer eyes and sausage tail; and over against him sat a monstrous brindle; and off at the right was an old spotted ratter; and on his left was one black as a wolf’s mouth, all but his eyes, which glared with a sulphurous and lurid brightness; and dotted all around, over a space some thirty feet square, were dozens more, of all sizes and colors, and such growling and spitting, and shrieking, and swearing, never before broke, with hideous discord, the silence of midnight.

“I loaded my double-barrelled gun by candle-light I put plenty of powder and a handful of shot into each barrel.  I adjusted the caps carefully, and stepped out of the window, upon the narrow roof upon which it opens.  I was then just eighty feet from that cat convention.  I addressed myself to the chairman (the old Maltese) in a distinct and audible voice and said, ‘SCAT!’ He did’nt recognise my right to the floor, but went right on with the business of the meeting.  ‘SCAT!’ cried I, more emphatically than before, but was answered only by an extra shriek from the chairman, and a fiercer scream from the whole assembly.  ‘SCAT! once,’ cried I again, as I brought my gun to a present.  ‘SCAT! twice,’ and I aimed straight at the chairman, covering half a dozen others in the range.  ‘SCAT! three times,’ and I let drive.  Bang! went the right-hand barrel; and bang! went the left-hand barrel.  Such scampering, such leaping off the shed, such running away over the eaves of the outbuildings, over the tops of the wood-sheds, were never seen before.  The echoes of the firing had scarcely died away, when that whole assemblage was broken up and dispersed.

“‘Thomas,’ said I, the next morning to the boy who did chores for us, ’there seems to be a cat asleep out on that woodshed, go up and scare it away.’

“Thomas clambered upon the shed and went up to where that cat lay, and lifting it up by the tail, hallood back to me, ’This cat can’t be waked up; it can’t be scared away—­its dead!’ After examining it for a moment—­’Somebody’s been a shootin’ on it, by thunder,’ as he tossed it down into the yard.

“You don’t say so!” said I.  “That cat was the old Maltese—­the chairman of that convention.  I don’t know where he boarded, or who claimed title to him.  What I do know is, that it cost me a quarter to have him buried, or thrown into the river; and that I was suffered to sleep in peace from the time I made the discovery that powder and lead are great quellers of midnight rioting.  They gave me quiet at least, and saved me from the wickedness of the nightly use of certain expletives, under the excitement of the occasion, which are not to be found in any of the religious works of the day.”