He carried an umbrella in his right hand, but with his left arm he performed a startled reflex gesture. He sheltered the cat. It was shockingly thin, but warm and tremulous.

“One of ’er nine lives gawn for a burton,” said the youth. He and his friends guffawed themselves into the garage.

“Drat,” said Mr. Whipplestone, who long ago had thought it amusing to use spinsterish expletives.

With some difficulty he hooked his umbrella over his left arm and with his right hand inserted his eyeglass and then explored the cat’s person. It increased its purrs, interrupting them with a faint mew when he touched its shoulder. What was to be done with it?

Obviously, nothing in particular. It was not badly injured, presumably it lived in the neighborhood, and one had always understood its species to have a phenomenal homing instinct. It thrust its nut-like head under Mr. Whipplestone’s jacket and into his waistcoat. It palpated his chest with its paws. He had quite a business detaching it.

He set it down on the pavement. “Go home,” he said. It stared up at him and went through the motion of mewing, opening its mouth and showing its pink tongue but giving no sound. “No,” he said, “go home!” It was making little preparatory movements of its haunches as if about to spring again.

He turned his back on it and walked quickly down Capricorn Mews. He almost ran.

It is a quiet little street, cobbled and very secluded. It accommodates three garages, a packing agency, two dozen or so small mid-Victorian houses, a minute bistro and four shops. As he approached one of these, a flower shop, he could see reflected in its side windows Capricorn Mews with himself walking towards him. And behind him, trotting in a determined manner, the little cat. It was mewing.