One night, while I was in my dressing-room, I neglected to latch the bedroom door.  When I was ready to get into bed, lo! there was Khaki on the foot of the bed, close against the footboard, fast asleep.  Not only was he asleep, but he was lying on his back, with his two white paws folded over his eyes as if to keep the lamplight out of them.  Well—­I had not the heart to drive him away.  He had won.  He slept there.  He never budged until I was dressed in the morning, when he got up, as if it were the usual thing, and followed, in his most dignified manner, down to breakfast.

Well, that was struggle number one.  Khaki had scored.

But, no sooner had I got myself reconciled—­I felt pretty shamefaced—­ when he changed his plans.  The very moment I was ready for bed he wanted to go out.  He never meowed.  He just tapped at the door, and if that did not succeed, he scratched on the window, and he was so one-idea-ed that nothing turned him from his purpose until he was let out.

For a time I used to sit up for him to come in.  I was ashamed to let Amelie know.  But, one night, after I had been out in the garden with a lantern hunting for him at midnight, I heard a gentle purring sound, and, after looking in every direction, I finally located him on the roof of the kitchen.  Being a bit dull, I imagined that he could not get down.  I stood up on a bench under the kitchen window, and called him.  He came to the eaves, and I could just reach him, but, as I was about to take him by a leg and haul him down, he retreated just out of my reach, and said what I imagined to be a pathetic “meow.”  I talked to him.  I tried to coax him to come within reach again, but he only went up the roof to the ridgepole and looked down the other side and said “meow.”  I was in despair, when it occurred to me to get the step-ladder.  You may think me impossibly silly, but I never supposed that he could get down.

I went for the key to the grange, pulled out the ladder, and hauled it along the terrace, and was just putting it up, when the little devil leaped from the roof into the lilac bush, swayed there a minute, ran down, scampered across the garden, and dashed up a pear tree, and—­well, I think he laughed at me.

Anyway, I was mad.  I went in and told him that he might stop out all night for all I cared.  Still, I could not sleep for thinking of him—­used to comfort—­out in the night, and it was chilly.  But he had to be disciplined.

I had to laugh in the morning, for he was playing on the terrace when I opened the door, and he had a line of three first-class mice laid out for me.  I said:  “Why, good morning, Khaki, did mother make him stay out all night?  Well, you know he was a naughty cat!”

He gave me a look—­I fancied it was quizzical—­rolled over, and showed his pretty white belly, then jumped up, gave one look up at the bedroom window, scampered up the salon shutter, crouched on the top, and, with one leap, was through the bedroom window.  When I rushed upstairs—­to see if he had hurt himself, I suppose,—­he was sitting on the foot of the bed, and I think he was grinning.