torn out in his fierce battles.

"The thunder roared overhead and the lightning, shining through the cracks, played on the barn floor and showed the cats sitting gravely in a circle. Only Tom Skip-an'-jump, who still kept his kittenish tricks, went frisking after his tail and turning somersaults in the hay. Presently he tumbled over Furry-Purry and bit her ear.

"'Come, play!' said he: 'it's a jolly time for puss-in-the-corner.'

"'Tom,' said Furry-Purry, 'I never shall play again. I am very unhappy. I have seen Mrs. Tabitha Velvetpaw lying on a silk cushion, while I make my bed in the hay. She walks on a lovely soft carpet, and I have only this barn floor. O Tom, I want to be a house-cat.'

"'A house-cat!' repeated Tom disdainfully. 'They sleep all day. They get their tails pulled and their ears pinched by horrid monsters with only two legs to walk on, and nights—beautiful moonlight nights when we barn-cats are roaming the alleys and singing on the roofs and having a good time generally—they are locked in cellars and garrets and made to watch rat-holes. Oh, no! not for Tom.'

"He was off with a whisk of his tail to the highest beam in the barn, looking down on them with the greenest of green eyes, and singing,—