A child visitor once rightly complained that
Polly had pins in her toes, and nobody knew this better than poor Joe.
At last, in despair, he sought revenge. I was writing at my desk one
day, when he suddenly appeared, grinning in a funny way he had, and
wagging his tail, until he enticed me out to the kitchen. There I found
Polly, who had an air of calling everything in the house her own. She
was on the cook's table, gobbling away at some chickens which were being
made ready for the oven and had been left unguarded. I caught her and
cuffed her, and she fled through the garden door, for once tamed and
vanquished, though usually she was so quick that nobody could administer
justice upon these depredations of a well-fed cat. Then I turned and saw
poor old Joe dancing about the kitchen in perfect delight. He had been
afraid to touch Polly himself, but he knew the difference between right
and wrong, and had called me to see what a wicked cat she was, and to
give him the joy of looking on at the flogging.
"It was the same dog who used sometimes to be found under a table where
his master had sent him for punishment in his young days of lawless
puppy-hood for chasing the neighbor's chickens. These faults had long
been overcome, but sometimes, in later years, Joe's conscience would
trouble him, we never knew why, and he would go under the table of his
own accord, and look repentant and crestfallen until some forgiving and
sympathetic friend would think he had suffered enough and bid him come
out to be patted and consoled.
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