Page:Cats; their Points and Characteristics.djvu/22

8 far from sure that the Arab isn't right, after all.

Pussy, from the very day she opens her wondering eyes and stares vacantly around her, becomes an object worthy of study and observation. Indeed, kittens, even before their eyes are opened, will know your voice or hand, and spit at a stranger's. The first year of pussy's existence is certainly the happiest. No creature in the world is so fond of fun and mischief as a kitten. Everything that moves or is movable, from its mother's tail to the table-cloth, must minister to its craze for a romp; but what pen could describe its intense joy, its pride and self-satisfaction, when, for the first time it has caught a real live mouse? This is as much an episode in the life of a kitten, as her first ball is to a young lady just out. Nor do well-trained and properly-fed cats ever lose this innate sense of fun, and love of the ridiculous. They lose their teeth first. I have seen demure old cats, of respectable matronly aspect,—cats that ought to have known better,—leave their kittens when only