Punch/Volume 147/Issue 3814/The Double Life
When Araminta said that I must speak to the man next door about his black cat, I was greatly perturbed. It appeared that the animal had acquired the habit of spending the night in our house, and that Harriet didn't like it. I said that black cats brought good luck, and, anyhow, by night all cats were grey. Araminta replied that this one was as black as a bilberry and took fish. Walking out into the garden I began to meditate deeply.
Perhaps you do not immediately grasp what a terrible and dangerous thing it was that Araminta had requested me to do. Between next-door neighbours in the area of Greater London there subsist relations of an infinite delicacy. They resemble the bloom upon a peach. They combine a sense of mutual confidence and esteem with absolute determination not to let it get any further. Mr. Trumpington (Harriet vouched for his name) and myself were certainly acquainted. In a sense you may even say we were friends. If I happened to be murdered or assaulted by a footpad there was not the smallest reason to suppose that Mr. Trumpington would refrain from giving the police every assistance in identifying the criminal. Similarly, if Mr. Trumpington's house caught fire, it was certain that I should be one of the first to offer him the load of our garden syringe.
As things were, what happened was this. Twice or thrice a week we nodded pleasantly to each other over the wall that divided our demesnes, through the interstices of our respective hollyhocks; once, only once, in a mad burst of irresponsible gaiety, Mr. Trumpington has gone so far as to murmur, "Good aft-" to me, and I had responded effusively, "-ernoon."
And now all this atmosphere of quiet sociableness was about to be destroyed through the paltry misdemeanours of a subfuse cat. For I had not the smallest doubt as to what would happen. Mr. Trumpington was a mild amiable-looking man. There was not the faintest prospect of his flying into a rage. He would not say, "What right have you to interfere with the private affairs of another man's domesticated fauna?" He would not ask me why I had inveigled his beautiful black cat on to my poisonous premises. No, we should talk together reasonable, amicably, and as man to man. Mr. Trumpington would promise to do all he could to give his cat pleasant, cheerful evenings at home, and I should agree that it was very hard to prevent a young cat from wanting to see a bit of life.
"Cats," we should say, nodding our heads wisely, "will be cats."
And then from cats we should pass on to dogs, to sport, to polities, to business, to heaven knows what. And the next day we should be compelled to pick up our conversation where we had dropped it. We should discuss our gardens and our family affairs. Things go from bad to worse. All our privacy and peace would disappear. We might almost as well break down the wall that divided us at once. Possibly (thought of horror) his wife would call on Araminta…
Still pondering ruefully, I turned round at the bottom of the garden path, and behold, sitting on the party-wall between Mr. Trumpington's garden and mine, was the debateable cat. An impulse of murderous rage possessed me. I took an old golf-ball from my pocket and hurled it as hard as I could at the potential destroyer of my my peace. The black cat was no sportsman. It dodged, and disappeared hastily on the Trumpington side. At the same moment from behind a large clump of hollyhocks I heard the sudden cry of a strong man in pain, followed by a stifled oath. I squatted down instantly behind a thick rosebush; then, rising to peer cautiously, I saw the horrible transformation which may be caused in the features of an orginary and amiable man by an access of sudden rage and the impact of a brambled golf-ball on the end of the nose. I squatted again.
"Confound the infernal fool! Who did that?" said the face of Mr. Trumpington, looking through the hollyhock peepholes, the buds of which rapidly began to turn from a lightish pink to deep rose.
It is always a more dignified policy to ignore a man in a temper, so it was not until about ten minutes had elapsed, and silence reigned, that I crawled painfully away into safety.
About five minutes later a note was brought round by hand from next door. It ran as follows:—
"Mr. Trumpington will feel greatly obliged if Mr. Brown will prevent his black cat from constantly straying upon his, Mr. Trumpington's, flower-beds. He also requests that when Mr. Brown wishes to persecute his black cat he should not do so when the animal is sitting on Mr. Trumpington's wall, as this practice is attended with considerable risk to Mr. Trumpington's life and limbs."
I sat down and wrote a reply.
"Mr. Brown," I said, "greatly regrets that a golf-ball playfully thrown at Mr. Trumpington's black car whilst sitting on his, Mr. Brown's, wall, should have caused annoyance to Mr. Trumpington."
*****
When I went out into the garden the following day I could see Mr. Trumpington's head, tastefully framed in pink hollyhock buds, apparently following the spoor of a green-fly. He looked up almost at once and caught my eye, but made no sign of recognition. I breathed a sigh of relief. Thank heaven, I thought to myself, the worst has not happened. The danger that I feared yesterday has blown over. There is no immediate prospect of Mr. Trumpington and myself becoming boon companions. I strolled a little further down the path, and, still occupying its old strategic position on the party-wall and licking its fur in the sun, I beheld the black car.
As I approached him he smiled an ambiguous smile, and jumped down once more upon Trumpington soil. A wave of great friendliness for the unhappy quadruped swept over me. "Persecute," I thought; "not likely." I went indoors and, after a short consultation with Harriet, came out again carrying a small round fish-cake on a spoon. I lobbed it far and wide over the wall, and it fell noiselessly and quite in the middle of Mr. Trumpington's most buttony calceolaria-bed. Some time later I was rewarded by the sight of a black cat stealing with a look of grateful memory on its face towards the Trumpington back-door.