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and the visit of inspection
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It did sound as if they were quarreling; at the door of the home the din was ear-splitting, excruciating, fiendish. It was as if the voices of all the cats in the county were raised in one piercing battle-song.

The Terror bade his kinsfolk stand clear; then he threw open the door—wide. Cats did not come out....A large ball of cats came out, gyrating swiftly in a haze of flying fur. Ten yards from the door it dissolved into its component parts, and some thirty cats tore, yelling, to the four quarters of the heavens.

After that stupendous battle-song the air seemed thick with silence.

The Terror broke it; he said in a tone of doubting sadness: "I sometimes think it sets a bad example to the kittens."

Sir Maurice turned livid in the grip of some powerful emotion. He walked hurriedly round to the back of the home to conceal it from human ken. There with his handkerchief stuffed into his mouth, he leaned against the wall, and shook and rocked and kicked the irresponsive bricks feebly.

But the serene Terror firmly ushered Lady Rye-

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