stay a moment. There is yet another, and in one way he or she is the drollest of the crew. In yonder far-off corner there, but not a great way from the fire, a branch of wood has been fixed in a block to keep it upright, and on one limb of this artificial tree is stretched at length a large chameleon. Chammy, as he is called, is very wide awake, and evidently enjoying the warmth of the fire, for hand after hand he extends, time about at intervals of about a minute to woo the welcome blaze.
And what a fire that is too! Pray do not let such a thing as a grate arise up before your mind’s eye at my mention of the word fire. The idea of a tall ungainly grate would utterly dispel all ideas of romance.
This is a low fire, a fire of logs and coals and peat, all beautifully, artistically, and thoughtfully arranged with the art that conceals art. A fire that to sit in front of on a winter’s evening would be an entertainment in itself; a fire that would make the oldest and loneliest man feel he had good company; a fire that laughs and talks to one; that speaks to the very soul itself, while it warms the very heart, and that carries the thought away back to pleasant scenes in past life, or merrily forward to a hopeful future; verily a fire to be thankful for, especially if wild winds are careering round the house, and moaning in the old-fashioned chimney, while we think of sailors far at sea.
Colonel Clarkson finishes his story, and stretches out his hand to find his pipe. Lizzie snuggles up closer to his chest, and pats his cheek with her fingers.
“God brought you safely back, didn’t he, dearest?” she says.
Uncle Clarkson kisses her brow for answer.
Ben clears his throat and is about to speak. But he seems to think better of it, and commences to refill his pipe instead, smiling to himself as he does so.
But bold little Tom holds up his hand, and says grimly—
“Uncle Clarkson, when I’m a big big man I’ll be a sodser (soldier), and tut (cut) off black men’s heads by the store (score)!”
Ben laughs, but shakes a finger at Tom.
“Poor dear Cockie!” says the cockatoo, in a mournfully lugubrious tone.
“Eh? Eh?” cries the starling, briskly looking up from his perch on top of the tabby. “Eh? What is it? What d’ye say? Tse, tse, tse.”
Vee-Vee, the Pomeranian, changes his position and faces Shireen.
He looks at her for a minute, then leans his head on her footstool, but his eyes are still fixed upon her.
Shireen was Vee-Vee’s foster mother. Six years ago he came to the Castle, being then a mere dossil of cotton wool apparently, with a black dot for a nose and two black dots for eyes, so that Lizzie called him a little snow dog. Well, the little snow dog was only a fortnight old, and it happened just then that Shireen had had kittens, the whole of which had died. No they had not been drowned, for Colonel Clarkson was too humane a man to think of depriving the pussy of all her family at once. But, I repeat, they died.
Then Shireen had taken pity on Vee-Vee, the little snow dog.
“You’re an orphan,” she said, or seemed to say, for it is all the same thing. “You’re an orphan, and a miserable little mite at that; well, I have oceans of milk, so I shall rear you if you are so inclined.”
The little snow dog was so inclined, and Shireen took him over at once, and till this day, next to his dear master, Vee-Vee loved his foster mother.
“Just look,” said Mrs. Clarkson, “how fondly Vee-Vee is gazing at his foster mother!”
“Oh,” cried Lizzie, “I know what Vee-Vee wants. He wants her to tell him a story.”
“Ah! indeed,” said Colonel Clarkson, “she well may tell her friends a story, for few cats have had a more adventurous life than she.”
Shireen patted Vee-Vee on the nose with her paw, but the nails were sheathed, then she proceeded to tell her strange story.
Cats and all the lower animals, or undergraduates, have a language of their own, you know, but I have made myself master of it, and I shall try to translate what Shireen said. Only I must take a new chapter to it.
Chapter Three.
“Oh! Kill me Quick and put me out of Pain.”
The story of my life? Was that what you asked me for, my little foster son? I see Warlock pricking one ear. He is going to listen too, is he?
Ah! well, my friends, my life has been a very long and a very eventful one, for I have travelled very far and seen much, and you all know I am getting old. Dick is laughing and chuckling to himself. Of course, he thinks that I am centuries old, but that is only because he himself is so young.
Chammy, the chameleon, looks down at Shireen with one of his droll eyes, while he watches a fly on the ceiling with the other. He holds up a hand, too, opening and shutting it as he remarks—
“Don’t give yourself airs about your age, Shireen. Look at me. It is a hundred years yesterday since I came to life again.”
“Came to life again, Chammy,” says Warlock, winking to Dick. “Why, what are you telling us?”
“The truth,” said the chameleon. “One thousand one hundred years ago yesterday—and it doesn’t seem very long to look back to—after a good dinner on butterflies I retired into the hollow of a young banian tree in an African forest to have a nap. I had dined heartily, and I slept long, so long that the tree grew up over me. And it grew and grew and grew for a thousand years till it became the most wonderful tree in all the forest. But one day it was rent in twain by a lightning flash, and—I awoke and crawled out and found a moth and swallowed it.”
“Tse, tse, tse!” said Dick.
“We can’t be expected to swallow your story though, Chammy,” said Warlock.
Chammy did not reply, for the fly had come down from the ceiling, and settling in front of the chameleon began to wash its face.
Chammy turned both eyes in towards his nose, and focused the fly, then his mouth slowly opened, and presently out darted a long round tongue, more like a slug than anything else, and the fly never finished washing its face.
Well, as I was saying, continued Shireen, when interrupted by our dear and excessively old friend Chammy, I am getting on! Twenty years, you know, children, is a long, long life for a cat, if not for a chameleon, and oh! what ups and downs I have seen in that time!
My very earliest recollections take me back to scenes in beautiful Persia, “the land of the lion and the sun.”
“Some day,” said Dick, the starling, making pretence to bathe himself in tabby’s glittering fur—“some day I mean to fly there. None of you fellows have wings, so you can’t do that sort of thing. It would take poor old dummy yonder fully another thousand years to wriggle that length. Better he should go to sleep again in an old log of wood!”
“Yes,” continued Dick, while Shireen sat thoughtfully washing her face and gazing at the fire. “I shall go to Persia. I had quite a long talk the other day with the cuckoo about it. He says that Persia in the South is no end of a nice place, with flies and things to be found all throughout the winter. He says he wouldn’t come here at all if it wasn’t that there is less danger in this country in summer-time to his eggs, and the climate is more bracing for the mother and the young. The Mother Cuckoo, you must remember, is very delicate, and wouldn’t think of rearing her own family, so she employs a nurse, or maybe three or four nurses; and the more fools they, I say, for accepting the situation, for they toil away all the best part of the summer, leaving their own little families to starve and never get a thank-you for their pains. But Mother Cuckoo is a knowing old bird; she