This was quite a feat. The tom was a Schrodinger cat who, before being adopted by a neighbour, had come wandering in from whatever hyperspace Schrodinger cats move around in, and for some reason considered that our house was his natural home. Real cat was not going to hiss at him though, because this meant recognising his existence and was therefore against the rules. So the two of them, by, some sort of telepathy, made certain that they were never in the same room. It was like those farces when one man is playing twin brothers and is forever running out of the French windows to look for himself just seconds before he walks in via the library door, in a different blazer, cursing at having missed meeting him.

Hygiene

Cats have always had the same well-meaning but shaky grasp of hygiene as humans, viz, if you've covered it over, it isn't there. The important thing is not actually to have achieved Hygiene, but to have been seen to have made the effort—as in, for example, trying to claw the lino into the dirt box.

What's so hygienic about having a wash in your own spit?

However, the Real cat scores over other domestic pets in one unusual respect: Real cats know what the bathroom is for.

We returned one day to find that the incumbent Real cat, by means of the usual hyperspace travel, had been in when we thought she was Out. Thus no dirt box had been provided. Real cat, we thought, had a rather shifty expression, although this particular cat has a shifty expression all the time and even breathes as though it is stealing the air. A perfunctory search of the usual resorts of desperation—dark corners, the fireplace revealed nothing unpleasant that wasn't nor until, much later, we went to the bathroom.



32 из 42