Penrod and Sam

by Booth Tarkington

  CHAPTER XII. GIPSY

  On a fair Saturday afternoon in November Penrod's little old dog Dukereturned to the ways of his youth and had trouble with a strange cat onthe back porch. This indiscretion, so uncharacteristic, was due to theagitation of a surprised moment, for Duke's experience had inclinedhim to a peaceful pessimism, and he had no ambition for hazardousundertakings of any sort. He was given to musing but not to avoidableaction, and he seemed habitually to hope for something that he waspretty sure would not happen. Even in his sleep, this gave him an air ofwistfulness.

  Thus, being asleep in a nook behind the metal refuse-can, when thestrange cat ventured to ascend the steps of the porch, his appearancewas so unwarlike that the cat felt encouraged to extend its field ofreconnaissance for the cook had been careless, and the backbone of athree-pound whitefish lay at the foot of the refuse-can.

  This cat was, for a cat, needlessly tall, powerful, independent andmasculine. Once, long ago, he had been a roly-poly pepper-and-saltkitten; he had a home in those days, and a name, "Gipsy," which heabundantly justified. He was precocious in dissipation. Long before hisadolescence, his lack of domesticity was ominous, and he had formed badcompanionships. Meanwhile, he grew so rangy, and developed such lengthand power of leg and such traits of character, that the father of thelittle girl who owned him was almost convincing when he declared thatthe young cat was half broncho and half Malay pirate--though, in thelight of Gipsy's later career, this seems bitterly unfair to even thelowest orders of bronchos and Malay pirates.

  No; Gipsy was not the pet for a little girl. The rosy hearthstone andsheltered rug were too circumspect for him. Surrounded by the comfortsof middle-class respectability, and profoundly oppressed, even in hisyouth, by the Puritan ideals of the household, he sometimes experienceda sense of suffocation. He wanted free air and he wanted free life; hewanted the lights, the lights and the music. He abandoned the bourgeoiseirrevocably. He went forth in a May twilight, carrying the eveningbeefsteak with him, and joined the underworld.

  His extraordinary size, his daring and his utter lack of sympathy soonmade him the leader--and, at the same time, the terror--of all theloose-lived cats in a wide neighbourhood. He contracted no friendshipsand had no confidants. He seldom slept in the same place twice insuccession, and though he was wanted by the police, he was not found.In appearance he did not lack distinction of an ominous sort; the slow,rhythmic, perfectly controlled mechanism of his tail, as he impressivelywalked abroad, was incomparably sinister. This stately and dangerouswalk of his, his long, vibrant whiskers, his scars, his yellow eye, soice-cold, so fire-hot, haughty as the eye of Satan, gave him the deadlyair of a mousquetaire duellist. His soul was in that walk and in thateye; it could be read--the soul of a bravo of fortune, living onhis wits and his velour, asking no favours and granting no quarter.Intolerant, proud, sullen, yet watchful and constantly planning--purelya militarist, believing in slaughter as in a religion, and confidentthat art, science, poetry and the good of the world were happilyadvanced thereby--Gipsy had become, though technically not a wildcat,undoubtedly the most untamed cat at large in the civilized world. Such,in brief, was the terrifying creature that now elongated its neck, and,over the top step of the porch, bent a calculating scrutiny upon thewistful and slumberous Duke.

  The scrutiny was searching but not prolonged. Gipsy mutteredcontemptuously to himself, "Oh, sheol; I'm not afraid o' THAT!" Andhe approached the fishbone, his padded feet making no noise upon theboards. It was a desirable fishbone, large, with a considerable portionof the fish's tail still attached to it.

  It was about a foot from Duke's nose, and the little dog's dreams beganto be troubled by his olfactory nerve. This faithful sentinel, on guardeven while Duke slept, signalled that alarums and excursions by partiesunknown were taking place, and suggested that attention might well bepaid. Duke opened one drowsy eye. What that eye beheld was monstrous.

  Here was a strange experience--the horrific vision in the midst ofthings so accustomed. Sunshine fell sweetly upon porch and backyard;yonder was the familiar stable, and from its interior came the busy humof a carpenter shop, established that morning by Duke's young master,in association with Samuel Williams and Herman. Here, close by, werethe quiet refuse-can and the wonted brooms and mops leaning against thelatticed wall at the end of the porch, and there, by the foot of thesteps, was the stone slab of the cistern, with the iron cover displacedand lying beside the round opening, where the carpenters had left it,not half an hour ago, after lowering a stick of wood into the water, "toseason it". All about Duke were these usual and reassuring environs ofhis daily life, and yet it was his fate to behold, right in the midst ofthem, and in ghastly juxtaposition to his face, a thing of nightmare andlunacy.

  Gipsy had seized the fishbone by the middle. Out from one side of hishead, and mingling with his whiskers, projected the long, spiked spineof the big fish; down from the other side of that ferocious head dangledthe fish's tail, and from above the remarkable effect thus produced shotthe intolerable glare of two yellow eyes. To the gaze of Duke, stillblurred by slumber, this monstrosity was all of one piece the boneseemed a living part of it. What he saw was like those interestinginsect-faces that the magnifying glass reveals to great M. Fabre. Itwas impossible for Duke to maintain the philosophic calm of M. Fabre,however; there was no magnifying glass between him and this spined andspiky face. Indeed, Duke was not in a position to think the matter overquietly. If he had been able to do that, he would have said to himself:"We have here an animal of most peculiar and unattractive appearance,though, upon examination, it seems to be only a cat stealing a fishbone.Nevertheless, as the thief is large beyond all my recollection of catsand has an unpleasant stare, I will leave this spot at once."

  On the contrary, Duke was so electrified by his horrid awakening that hecompletely lost his presence of mind. In the very instant of his firsteye's opening, the other eye and his mouth behaved similarly, the latterloosing upon the quiet air one shriek of mental agony before the littledog scrambled to his feet and gave further employment to his voice ina frenzy of profanity. At the same time the subterranean diapason of ademoniac bass viol was heard; it rose to a wail, and rose and rose againtill it screamed like a small siren. It was Gipsy's war-cry, and, at thesound of it, Duke became a frothing maniac. He made a convulsive frontalattack upon the hobgoblin--and the massacre began.

  Never releasing the fishbone for an instant, Gipsy laid back his ears ina chilling way, beginning to shrink into himself like a concertina, butrising amidships so high that he appeared to be giving an imitation ofthat peaceful beast, the dromedary. Such was not his purpose, however,for, having attained his greatest possible altitude, he partially satdown and elevated his right arm after the manner of a semaphore. Thissemaphore arm remained rigid for a second, threatening; then it vibratedwith inconceivable rapidity, feinting. But it was the treacherous leftthat did the work. Seemingly this left gave Duke three lightning littlepats upon the right ear; but the change in his voice indicated thatthese were no love-taps. He yelled "help!" and "bloody murder!"

  Never had such a shattering uproar, all vocal, broken out upon apeaceful afternoon. Gipsy possessed a vocabulary for cat-swearingcertainly second to none out of Italy, and probably equal to the bestthere, while Duke remembered and uttered things he had not thought offor years.

  The hum of the carpenter shop ceased, and Sam Williams appeared in thestable doorway. He stared insanely.

  "My gorry!" he shouted. "Duke's havin' a fight with the biggest cat youever saw in your life! C'mon!"

  His feet were already in motion toward the battlefield, with Penrod andHerman hurrying in his wake. Onward they sped, and Duke was encouragedby the sight and sound of these reenforcements to increase hisown outrageous clamours and to press home his attack. But he wasill-advised. This time it was the right arm of the semaphore thatdipped--and Duke's honest nose was but too conscious of what happened inconsequence.

  A lump of dirt struck the refuse-can with violence, and Gipsy
beheldthe advance of overwhelming forces. They rushed upon him from twodirections, cutting off the steps of the porch. Undaunted, theformidable cat raked Duke's nose again, somewhat more lingeringly, andprepared to depart with his fishbone. He had little fear for himself,because he was inclined to think that, unhampered, he could whipanything on earth; still, things seemed to be growing rather warm and hesaw nothing to prevent his leaving.

  And though he could laugh in the face of so unequal an antagonist asDuke, Gipsy felt that he was never at his best or able to do himselffull justice unless he could perform that feline operation inaccuratelyknown as "spitting". To his notion, this was an absolute essentialto combat; but, as all cats of the slightest pretensions to techniqueperfectly understand, it can neither be well done nor produce the besteffects unless the mouth be opened to its utmost capacity so as toexpose the beginnings of the alimentary canal, down which--at least thatis the intention of the threat--the opposing party will soon be passing.And Gipsy could not open his mouth without relinquishing his fishbone.

  Therefore, on small accounts he decided to leave the field to hisenemies and to carry the fishbone elsewhere. He took two giant leaps.The first landed him upon the edge of the porch. There, without aninstant's pause, he gathered his fur-sheathed muscles, concentratedhimself into one big steel spring, and launched himself superbly intospace. He made a stirring picture, however brief, as he left the solidporch behind him and sailed upward on an ascending curve into the sunlitair. His head was proudly up; he was the incarnation of menacing powerand of self-confidence. It is possible that the whitefish's spinalcolumn and flopping tail had interfered with his vision, and inlaunching himself he may have mistaken the dark, round opening ofthe cistern for its dark, round cover. In that case, it was a leapcalculated and executed with precision, for as the boys clamoured theirpleased astonishment, Gipsy descended accurately into the orifice andpassed majestically from public view, with the fishbone still in hismouth and his haughty head still high.

  There was a grand splash!