So much for disciplining a cat.

However, I had learned something—­and, evidently, he had also.  I had learned that a cat can take care of himself, and has a right to live a cat’s life, and he learned that I was dull.  We treat each other accordingly.  The truth is—­he owns me, and the house, and he knows it.

Since then he asks for the door, and gets it when he asks.  He goes and comes at his own sweet will.  When he wants to come in, in the daytime, he looks in at all the windows until he finds me.  Then he stands on his hind legs and beats the window with his paws until I open it for him.  In the night, he climbs to the bedroom window, and taps until he wakens me.  You see, it is his house, not mine, and he knows it.  What is the drollest of all—­he is never one minute late to his meals.

He is familiarly known to all my neighbors as “the Grand Duc de Huiry” and he looks the part.  Still, from my point of view, he is not an ideal cat.  He is not a bit caressing.  He never fails to purr politely when he comes in.  But he is no longer playful.  He never climbs up to my shoulder and rubs against my face as some of Amelie’s commoner cats will do.  He is intelligent and handsome—­just a miniature tiger, and growls like a new arrival from the jungle when he is displeased—­ and he is a great ratter.  Moreover Amelie has decided that he is an “intellectuel.”

One morning, when he had been out all night, and did not return until almost breakfast-time, he was sitting on my knee, making his toilette, while I argued the matter with him.  Amelie was dusting.  I reproached him with becoming a rodeur, and I told him that I should be happier about him if I knew where he was every night, and what he did.

He yawned as if bored, jumped off my knees and began walking round the library, and examining the books.

“Well,” remarked Amelie, “I can tell you where he goes.  He has a class in Maria’s grange, where the wheat is stored—­a class of mice.  He goes every evening to give conferences on history and the war, and he eats up all the stupid pupils.”

I had to laugh, but before I could ask her how she knew, Khaki jumped up on top of the lowest line of books, and disappeared behind.

Amelie shrugged her shoulders, and said:  “Voila!  He has gone to prepare his next conference.”  And he really had chosen a line of books on history.

You see Amelie knows beasties better than I do.  There really is a sort of freemasonry between certain people and dumb animals.  I have not a bit of it, though I love them.  You would adore to see Amelie play with cats.  She knows how.  And as for her conversation with them, it is wonderful.  I remarked the fact to her one day, when her morning salutations with the cats had been unusual.  She replied, with her customary shrug:  “Eh bien, Madame, toujours, entre eux, les betes se comprennent.”

So much in brief for cat number one.  Number two is a different matter.