I was a boy of eighteen years of age when my mother brought home with her, all the way from the State of Maine, a Maltese Pussy, of full breed. We called her "Nellie." After mother had buttered Nellie's feet, a process which she said would always keep a cat from running away from home, the aristocratic Nellie became an important member of our household, and never deserted us.

One day I brought home to Nellie a companion who had been presented to me by a friend. "Tom," as we called the boy, was a pure Maltese, and a giant of his kind, a cheerful, clever and peaceable fellow and an ornament and pet, for he was admired by everybody who saw him. His feet were also buttered, and after a little spat with Nellie, who, at first, could see no just reason why Tom should encroach upon her domain, the two became fast friends, and finally married and raised several litters of pure Maltese kittens, all of whom we gave to longing friends save one, which we kept for Nellie's sake.

Tom remained true to his marriage vows for a long time, but one day, about six months after his advent in the household, he was missing, and the neighborhood was searched for Tom. He remained away until the following afternoon, when he returned, looking sheepish, while his appearance bore unmistakable evidence of his having been indulging in a debauch. Tom was very crestfallen and expressed his sorrow to his spouse Nellie, who would have nothing to do with him for several days. Poor Tom was disconsolate, and applied to me for sympathy. Of course every member of the family reproved Tom for his waywardness, but the story of the "Prodigal Son" and his return, in tatters, was not forgotten, although the fatted calf was omitted, and I was the first to forgive and console Tom. I used my influence so successfully with Nellie, who was very fond of me, that once more Tom was taken into Nellie's favor and everything went on as usual, excepting that Nellie gave every evidence of keeping a close eye upon her erring liege-lord, who was not fully restored to her confidence.

Some five weeks after, while Nellie was nursing a new brood of kittens, Tom turned up missing again. We did not go to any trouble that time to search for him, nor did we feel any anxiety concerning the wandering minstrel, knowing from our former experience that he was big enough and old enough to take care of himself. Three weary weeks for Nellie went by while she was worrying for her Romeo, although she tried to conceal her anxiety behind an appearance of unconcern, while lavishing her affections upon her infants. At the end of the third week Tom leisurely strolled into the house and sought Nellie's presence. He bore an air of bravado which seemed to say that he was lord and master of his own family, that he had a right to go whither, and stay there as long as he pleased. But he was battered and torn, almost beyond recognition. One eye was completely closed, much of his fur was gone, he limped when he walked, one ear was entirely bitten through and a portion of it missing, and his head was covered with bloody wounds, while his general appearance was emaciated, tattered and forlorn. Nellie's tail was a sight to behold when she spied Tom, and she raised herself to a sitting posture and threw upon the debauchee a withering look of contempt which sent his tail between his legs in less time than it takes to tell it, while he completely lost his braggadocio air and slunk off to a corner of the room and Nellie returned to her babies.

After the tramp had received a scolding from each one of the family, and been thoroughly cleansed and his wounds dressed, he sat down a few feet from his lawful wife and moaned and cried for an hour or more, without once attracting a look of pity from her. After that he approached Nellie and attempted to ask her forgiveness for his absence upon some fictitious ground, but that faithful one raised herself upon her hind legs, spat upon the battered tramp and then deliberately beat him with her paws and scratched him with her claws until he slunk out of the room, a well reproved if not a better Cat. For more than a week, every time Tom made overtures looking toward a reconciliation, Nellie repeated her chastisement, and I fully believe if any other Maltese Tom had presented himself during that time, she would have taught Tom a lesson which he would have remembered to the end of his life, by adopting him in Tom's place, and, with his assistance, driven out upon the charity of a cold world, her wayward and presumably unfaithful consort. But, although we refused to intercede for him with Nellie, in the course of time Tom was partly forgiven and was again kept under the watchful eye of Nellie.

Three months later the vagabond again forgot his marriage vows and disappeared. This time we gave him up for lost, as he did not return for a month. Considering him a thing of the beautiful past, I bought another Tom and brought him home to Nellie. Singularly enough, the two did not fraternize, although it was not the fault of the new Tom, and Nellie remained, as she supposed, a widow, with her kittens as her constant care. Upon them she lavished all of her affections, spitting at and boxing the new Tom whenever he approached them.

One fine day, to our utter astonishment, the scoundrel, Tom, strolled in upon the scene as nonchalantly as if he had not been off on a long protracted cruise. But this time he was covered with sores, and had, in addition, the mange. He was a sorry-looking Tom, and an animal to avoid. Even in that condition, I am sure, Nellie would have nursed him and doctored him until he recovered, had he been faithful to her. But there was no hope of it now. She had evidently been thinking deeply about the newcomer, and was making comparisons.

At first he showed contrition, but when he discovered the new Tom, who he supposed had assumed his duties in the household, he did not become an Enoch Arden, but, with fire in his evil eye and without making proper inquiries concerning Nellie's unexceptionable conduct, with a great bologna sausage of a fuzzy tail and a fearful shriek for vengeance, he made for Tom Number Two with the speed of lightning, in the stereotyped manner of an outraged husband whose lapses of fealty and so on are forgotten in the greater sin of an interloper.

What might have become of the innocent new fellow was illustrated in the story of the Kilkenny cats, with this difference, that one of the two would have been left on the earth, and it wouldn't have been the new fellow, for Tom was the maddest Cat you ever saw. When the tocsin of war was sounded by the mangy deserter, Nellie sprang for him and there ensued a battle royal. There was war to the knife, from the point to the hilt. The screams of the combatants were terrific, and the dining-room floor was covered with a constantly accumulating mass of Maltese fur. In both the new Tom and Nellie, who, alone, was a host in herself, the mangy Tom found more than his match, and he was beaten, torn, wounded at every point, and a total wreck when he scurried out of the house and took his sorrowful way down the street, toward the dock at the foot of Hubert street. Whether or not he did the best thing he could have done under the circumstances, and went and drowned himself, is more original Tom, by the side of Nellie, never knew him more, for the new fellow thereafter succeeded to his lares and penates and Nellie and he lived happily together until Tom number two was shot by some cruel person. After that Nellie mourned his loss and refused to be comforted with another, although, of course, there were many Toms who would have lain down and died for her. She lived but a short time after the death of her second husband, and died regretted by all of us.